The COMPLETE Dark Souls Series Story Retrospective
B2
Dark Souls is one of the best series of
all time and has one of the most complex
yet remarkable narratives I've ever had
the pleasure of uncovering it's filled
with so many ideas themes and values
that breathe life into this series and
its various interpretations allow people
to add in their own details ultimately
making their playthroughs a unique
experience so today I want to take some
time to talk about the trilogy I want to
not only retell the game's main stories
but also critique them along the way I'm
going to examine why specific parts of
the game are so well crafted and how its
World design and bosses shape the story
around them so with that out of the way
thank you for watching and I hope you
enjoy Dark Souls 1 is a fantastic game
it's got a wonderful story that would
set in motion numerous events that would
occur throughout the trilogy but just
within the bounds of its own game Dark
Souls 1 has some incredibly deep and
Rich lore filled with some of the
greatest backstories this Series has to
offer and today I want to discuss why so
without further Ado let's get started so
the opening cinematic of Dark Souls 1
starts with the gray world one that is
filled with giant trees and dragons and
while the world stayed like that for a
while one day fire was born as for how
this fire came to be well it's never
explained this is one of the many things
we just have to accept the world of Dark
Souls is fantasy and many things just
can't be explained it's never mentioned
how the first flame was created as it
just happened but because the first
flame was born disparity came with it
life and death heat and cold and light
and dark this description is literal
since the first flame was created the
people of the world felt its warmth and
understood what heat was when they
walked away from the flame they realized
its heat didn't reach them which created
the feeling of cold the discovery of
fire during the Stone Age is to this day
the greatest discovery known to man and
in Dark Souls this is no different given
how unique something like this in the
world of Dark Souls was those who
discovered it were obviously attracted
to its power four notable people would
discover Lord Souls next to these flames
and be given immense power these people
were Neato isth Gwyn and the pygmy from
the intro we can infer that there was a
civilization of people that existed
during the age of ancients isth had
daughters that were with her when she
found her lord soul and Gwyn had his
knights with him implying that people
did exist during the time of the age of
ancients but weren't of much value to
the world given how powerful the Dragons
Were eventually Neato isth and Gwyn
would band together and use their power
to overthrow the dragons Gwyn used his
lightning isth used her flames and Neato
used his death and disease they also
received help from a SE the scales a
Dragon who betrayed his own kind now
that the new Lords were on top of the
food chain the age of ancients was no
more and the age of fire had begun this
period would last thousands of years
until we get to today currently the fire
is fading and it needs to be rekindled
in order to keep it lit but doing this
is not as simple as it sounds you may
have noticed I forgot to talk about the
pygmy well the pygmy had a unique Soul
called The Dark Soul using his soul he
created something called Humanity he
would then share this Humanity with his
people these Dark Soul imbued people
became became known as humans the pygmy
is essentially our ancestor Gwyn feared
this power though and created the dark
sign which inadvertently caused the
undead curse this isn't explained much
in Dark Souls 1 but it is by far the
most important plot in the whole series
and while I just wanted to talk about
this game for the whole video this needs
to be explained or else the rest of the
video going forward will make no sense
the undead curse the dark sign and the
fading of the fire are all linked the
Dark Soul gets more powerful the closer
the fire is to fading thus meaning human
should get more powerful over time but
gwin screwed Humanity twice by
rekindling the flame thus removing our
chance at power but also by branding
humans with the dark sign think of this
as a literal wall of fire that prevents
the Dark Soul within men from getting
too powerful the dark sign only
activates when the flame is fading
because that is when the Dark Soul
within men starts to grow stronger this
dark sign also prevents humans from
dying but it also causes them to go
Undead these fleshy creatures were once
Undead humans but they have crossed the
barrier of no return even though humans
are able to revive after death
eventually this will cause them to lose
their Humanity lose their minds and lose
their purpose causing them to go Hollow
these creatures are Hollows beings who
don't even remember who they are where
they are or what they're even doing Gwyn
likes being on top and he fears the day
that he will lose his power so he'll do
anything he can to prevent that from
happening he did this by branding
Humanity with the dark sign but by also
rekindling the flame which is known as
the first sin see the world is like a
set of operations things are born but
eventually they'll die but but then more
things will be born only to die soon
after that's just the way the world
works but Gwyn broke the laws of the
World by rekindling the first flame it
was meant to be extinguished but due to
Gwyn wanting to hold on to what he held
dear he couldn't Dare See It Go he
sacrificed himself by using himself as
kindling for the first flame since he
had one of the four original Lord Souls
that came from the first flame it was
deemed sufficient enough to be used as
fuel unless the gauge of fire continued
but as we know it is fading once more
the undead curse is back humans are
turning Hollow and the world is in chaos
doesn't this sound like a fantastic
story that's because it is this intro
and even the game display a sense of
desperation within our characters how
far are people willing to go to get what
they want or keep what they have and
while each of their desires is different
it always comes out the same Dark Souls
1 is just the start but the actions of
its characters will continue to Echo
throughout the entire Trilogy and we're
just getting started after the opening
cinematic we get to see the state of the
world as it is today or at least the
state of this we're an undead that is
sitting in their cell awaiting the end
of the world but one day we're given the
key to our cell and are able to leave
this person is Oscar and he speaks of a
prophecy there is an old saying in my
family thou who art Undead art chosen in
thine Exodus from the Undead Asylum
maketh pilgrimage to the land of ancient
Lords when thou ringeth the bell of
Awakening the fate of the undead Thou
shalt know this prophecy also happens to
be the main objective of the game but
it's only the first part the rest we'll
have to discover later the intro of Dark
Souls 1 sets up a new world by
showcasing multiple important events in
the world's history and also gives us
enough information to understand the
basic premise of the game while also
purposely withholding some of that
information to give us a reason to seek
out set information one thing we need to
consider though is our character's
motivations why even bother making the
trip to lordran the land of Lords well
what else is there to do it's the end of
the world and you were just given the
keys to your cell allowing you to
explore the world to Hearts content even
if you're convinced that life is doomed
and the world as we know it will
disappear for good why not make the most
out of it have some fun kill some
Hollows it's a whole lot better than
rotting in a cell with our objective
laid out to us thanks to Oscar we can
now set out to lordran and ring the
bells technically the first area you're
meant to go is the undead Berg but one
wrong step and you can make it to New
Londo out of all the souls games Dark
Souls 1 will provide the best blind
playthrough as due to its connected
World players will go in different
directions which in turn will create
different experiences New Londo is
actually a lake Game Area since the
enemies here are quite strong and the
boss at the end of the level is quite
tough but you may stumble upon this area
by accident within 5 minutes of arriving
this is due in part to Dark Souls 1's
level design which may have the best
level design in the whole franchise it's
been coined as a Metroid Vania a genre
that started with the games Metroid and
Castlevania these games have nonlinear
progression as many areas can be
accessed right away but others can't
causing the player to go around the map
looking for the key then running back to
that same location such as this door
that leads to havl which can only be be
found in the dark grou Basin past the
boss the door is found pretty early on
in your playthrough but the key is found
much later plus you'll also have to
remember where that key goes you'll be
doing lots of running in this game the
highlight of one of my play sessions was
going from BL town to Andre because I
forgot to ascend my weapon before a boss
fight meaning I had to take a 3-minute
walk up to him then a 3-minute walk back
down in future titles this would be
remedied by fast travel but Dark Souls 1
doesn't have fast travel initially and
even when you do gain the power of fast
travel via the Lord vessel it's not the
typical fast travel were familiar with
as we're only allowed to travel to
specific bonfires these decisions
further immerse the player into the
world as it's all one connected level
and since they're all connected that
means you can see certain levels from
different places such as Blight Town
which is visible from Firelink Shrine So
Not only was the level design of each
area taken into account but also how the
levels connected to one another and how
this connection would affect other areas
regardless of where you end up though
whether that be New Londo or Undead Berg
the very first enemies you'll come to
see are these Hollow Men like the ones
back in the Asylum all the undead we see
here are humans who have lost their
Humanity causing them to go Hollow and
now since we are human we should go
Hollow too however it's a bit more meta
than that hollowing is a bit hard to
Define as everyone can go Hollow for
different reasons but the two main ideas
seem to stem from constant death or a
loss of purpose given that our character
is set on ringing the bells he never
goes Hollow despite being Undead as he
still has a purpose should the player
quit and uninstall the game they would
lose their purpose so permanently
quitting the game is sort of like
hollowing in a sense I don't think
everything needs to be explained with
lore so this is more than likely just a
gameplay mechanic but that's how I've
interpreted hollowing on our way to the
bells of Awakening we'll come across
various different locations but sadly
there isn't a whole lot of backstory
involved in their creation locations
like Undead Berg are just Undead
settlements and the valley of Drakes is
just a valley filled with Drakes the
only exceptions though are Ash Lake and
blight toown blight toown is next to a
location called the deps and at the end
of The Depths is the gaping dragon and
while an interesting boss what's more
important is the arena we can see water
coming from the depths and going into
the sewer system which leads to Blight
Town according to various keys in the
game we can piece together that those
who previously lived in the undead Berg
but were banished from the settlement
were sent to Blight Town as punishment
this is reinforced by the giant door
that separates the sewer system from the
outside world but this water from the
sewer is poisonous well in Blight Town
there's a spell called Poison mist and
according to its description it seems
that eni this egg bearing individual may
have caused this as he was the creator
of the poison Miss spell it's not fully
confirmed that he did this but it's
clear that ble Town isn't in the
greatest State and it's due to the
circumstances surrounding blle town that
the town's folks seem to have built
above the water in hopes of getting away
from it this is a common theme in these
games of things being built on top of
one another as we see Blight Town above
the swamp The Depths above Blight Town
and the undead Berg above all that the
idea of pushing things down and leaving
them to Fester is also a common theme
within this game but not everything is
in such a sad State as at the lowest
point of lordran we see Ash Lake a
seemingly infinite land filled with
archery trees that are surrounded by an
equally infinite body of water for the
purposes of Ash Lake this seems to be
where the dragons used to live or at
least one part of it as it's eerily
similar to the environment in the intro
which we do know was the land of the
Everlasting dragons we can even find one
of the few remaining dragons down here
in Ash Lake he's a part of the dragon
covenant in game and from various
descriptions it seems like many people
worshiped the dragons and tried to
ascend to their level it's unclear
though if that worked once the player
feels confident in their fighting
abilities they can approach the bosses
defending the bells of wake ing these
being the Bell Gargoyles and Chaos witch
quag after ringing both Bells we'll see
that s's Fortress a place that was
originally blocked with a large gate is
now open but if we travel back to
Firelink Shrine we'll find a primordial
serpent named frampt he claims to be a
close friend of gwyn's and also claims
to know our fate very well then I am
pleased to share chosen
Undead your fate is to succeed the great
Lord Gwyn so that you May link the fire
Cast Away the Dark and undo the curse of
the undead to this end you must visit an
Orondo and acquire the Lord vessel just
like before this second part of the
prophecy also happens to be our newest
objective but frampt is quite a complex
character if certain conditions are met
within the game we can also be granted
an audience with coth he however tells
us a different story your ancestor
claims the Dark Soul and waited for fire
to
subside and soon the Flames did fade and
only dark remained thus began the age of
men the age of dark so it wasn't just
the fact that the fire was fading that
caused Gwyn to rekindle it the flame
actually went out furthermore despite
being the same species both framp and
coth have different views on the world
framp wants to keep the age of fire
going but coth wants to usher in an age
of Darkness the question is who do we
trust well that's up to you as these are
the two endings of the game extinguish
the flame or rekindle it the choice is
yours what is important to note though
is their motivations why are they doing
this why are they against each other
well we still don't know and it's been a
widely debated topic that hasn't been
given a proper answer yet regardless I
don't think you should trust any of them
framp claims that the undead curse will
be cured if we link the flame but this
isn't correct as we'll see in Dark Souls
2 and 3 The Curse is still present framp
and cth are like politicians they say
what needs to be said but never
elaborate by technicality the undead
curse will be cured when we link the
flame as we know the dark sign only
appears when fire Fades and if it's not
fading then the curse of the dark sign
is gone which means the curse goes with
it but it will eventually come back
Things Are Meant to run their course so
over time the fire will fade again and
the curse will come back just not in our
character's lifetime frampt whether
intentional or not is leading the player
to believe that the Cur curse will
disappear permanently when indeed it
only just disappears for a few thousand
years but cth is also lying as he isn't
fully explaining what this age of
Darkness entails and as we'll see kth
isn't exactly the nicest person in the
souls Universe I've always seen these
two as Immortal beings ones that are
ageless and due to this when the time
comes they like to move the pieces a bit
and see what happens cth and framp are
basically playing a long game of chess
but without the stakes regardless of who
wins they both continue to live one just
managed to convince the chosen and
Undead more so why not cause a bit of
chaos a lie or two here wouldn't hurt
anybody as it's just extra pieces on the
board to them to this day we still don't
know what they really want from us and
whether their goals they conveyed to us
were actually genuine my interpretation
of these could be wildly incorrect but
that's the beauty of these games they
allow you to shape your own story and
create your own adventure and in my
story I don't trust these two regardless
of who you believe the one thing they
agree on is that we need the Lord vessel
thus we need to get to an Orlando to get
there we'll need to pass through
Fortress a place filled with deadly
traps and is easily the most infuriating
area in the whole game The Fortress is
also used as a sort of trial as this
leads us to an Orlando but many people
have tried and failed to get there this
is of course due to the numerous traps
throughout the Fortress and the Iron
Golem at the top although he was
surprisingly the easiest part of the
Fortress once the Golem is defeated we
are then grabbed by these demons and
taken to an Orlando
it's hard to forget your first time in
an Orlando nothing up until this point
has been more extravagant and beautiful
looking than this place and that's what
makes it so memorable in a world devoid
of beauty and color there's this
incredible place that just exists but
it's on the other side of the wall but
something is off it feels empty like we
showed up Lake to a party and in a more
metaphorical and literal sense we have
this place is gorgeous but if you'll
excuse the Pun It's also quite Hollow
lots of your time and an Orlando is
spent walking but if you manage to make
it past these Giants and exploit the AI
of these silver Knights then you'll make
it to the climactic fight of orstein and
SM on ands is undoubtedly my favorite
fight in Dark Souls 1 the balance of
these two is unmatched as orstein is a
quick nimble fighter that can go halfway
across the arena just to hit you but his
damage is nowhere near as staggering as
the force that is SM whereas orstein
instills fear from his speed sm's fear
comes from his power orstein at the
beginning of the fight is more or less a
pushover he does deal decent damage but
it's not enough to Warrant a healing
item but no amount of damage resistance
especially this early on could protect
you from smos hammer and one hit from
this Hammer can make orstein seem a lot
more threatening their power grows from
the other's presence as the more orstein
chips at your health the closer you are
to being within one shot range of SM and
if SM hits you once well there's nothing
that can compare to that level of stress
they feed off each other in such a
balanced way in fact they actually feed
on each other as whoever Falls first
becomes the power source for the other
their health also goes back to full so
it's never about dwindling them down
over time it's committing to one and
sticking with it the problem is is
knowing when to strike and how given how
well they complement each other it might
seem like there's never an opening and
that's what makes them such a difficult
fight all that's required though from
the player is patience it's arguably one
of the best fights in the game and even
the series as a whole and I can finally
see why while on and may seem like the
climactic Finish to the level hold your
load as behind them is the real climax
the princess of sunlight Gwen feel free
to interpret climax however you want she
is the one who gives us the Lord vessel
we need to progress through the game but
as I said earlier it feels like we
arrived late to a party well I wasn't
lying once the post-nut clarity settles
in if we attack GW ofir the world of an
Orlando shows its true colors and
reveals that it's just as depressing as
everything else in lordran and the one
responsible for this illusion is dark
swindin gwindel is an interesting case
to me as he was the last born child of
Gwyn who was a male but was raised as a
female this was due to his strong
Affinity with moon magic I'm not sure
what the connection is but maybe it's
some sort of cultural thing where the
Moon is seen as a sort of feminine and
symbol which would actually explain a
lot regarding a future game and two of
its characters gwindel also created the
illusion of an Orlando to seemingly
entice The Chosen Undead to continue
their Duty remember gwindel only appears
when we kill Gwen's illusion meaning
that this is actually gwindel speaking
to us through his sister he also shares
the same viewpoints as framp which is
interesting as he's basically telling us
to kill his father and continue the age
of fire gwiin seems to want to hold on
to the power his family has and keep
things running smoothly which is why he
wants the age of fire to continue so
that his family and their powers can
stay and the reason why he created the
illusion of and Orlando was also to
desperately hold on to the Past H I
guess it runs in the family then as for
how Gwen ofir fits into this well she
was gwyn's second born child who like
many other deities left in Orlando she
would then meet with a flame God FL and
later become his wife besides these two
Gwyn had two other children but we'll
have to wait for Dark Souls 3i to
discuss more about them so in Orlando
the city of gods this place that was
supposed to be seen as a Beacon of Hope
to all within lordran is just an
illusion but an Orlando isn't the only
illusion of lordran by making our way to
the painting inside the city upon
touching it we're thrown into the
painted world of Aramis Aramis as a
concept is fascinating as it's this
world within a world and these people
inside the painting could possibly never
know of the world outside of it from
exploring this Hidden World we learn
that Aramis was made for things the gods
feared aramus is home to the followers
of Vela and Vela is known as the goddess
of sin furthermore this is the only
location in the game where you can find
the dark Ember which according to its
item description is used to make occult
Weaponry weapons that were favorable
amongst those who plan to kill the gods
and their kin Vela was more than likely
someone who wanted to hunt the gods but
was killed or thrown into the painting
it's clear that this place has a
malicious history behind it but it's not
all bad as the person who watches over
Aramis is crossbreed Priscilla Priscilla
is a half-human half dragon crossbreed
due to this unique birth she also gains
some unique abilities mainly the ability
of Life hunt which she uses on her
Scythe these powers of hers could th
threaten the God's rule so they also
threw her into the painted world but
what's rather interesting is Priscilla
herself she's the only boss in the game
that doesn't want to fight us she even
tells us how to leave Aramis meaning not
only does she have no intent of enacting
Revenge but she knows how to leave yet
refuses Priscilla may have felt how
these new arrivals feel but instead of
using Vengeance she uses acceptance and
instead welcomes these people into her
painted world it's actually quite
wholesome and is the reason why I
couldn't kill her every boss in this
game is hellbent on killing me so when I
finally discover Ed one that didn't want
to and in fact help me I couldn't refuse
so I left with the hope that Priscilla
would be able to make this place a
proper home for her people this whole
area is swarming with Hollows and other
creatures that want nothing more than to
kill us but they were either tricked
into here or thrown in because the gods
will it and yeah some of them probably
do belong in here but if Priscilla is
set on making this place a home for
those who have found themselves here
then who am I to intervene after
acquiring the Lord vessel when we meet
with cth or frm they'll tell us that to
gain access to Gwyn we must gather the
remaining Lord souls and use them to
satiate the Lord vessel these Lord Souls
belong to four individuals SE the scalas
The Witch of isth Neato and the Four
Kings three of whom you will have
already recognized from here we can
tackle the game in any order we want so
let's start with the Four Kings the Four
Kings are well Four Kings who ruled over
New Londo they were given fragments of
Gwyn Soul which is why we need to kill
them you may recognize their boss
location as this is the same dark abyss
that we met cth in well long ago the
Four Kings were tricked by cth and were
consumed by the abyss this caused the
Kings to go mad and this also caused the
citizens to either become these Blobs of
mass or the dark wraith soldiers this
area really utilizes the envirment to
tell its tale as this place is overrun
by the ghosts of the villagers and when
we actually unlock the door to lower
nandoo we see piles of corpses scattered
throughout the land cth single-handedly
destroyed an entire city simply by
tricking its inhabitants and unleashing
the abyss upon them while the mass
extinction of a city sounds bad there is
still more destruction to be seen one
thing you may have noticed is a severe
lack of human bosses quag would probably
count as the first one you'd meet
although she's sort of half human but
there's a reason for this as this has to
do with the witch of isth while Gwyn was
frantically running around trying to
figure out what to do with the flame The
Witch of isth had a plan she was going
to create a new flame that would replace
the first flame but she attempted to
create a replica in the presence of the
very thing that was created which
brought with it massive consequences The
Witch of isth wanted to create a new
first flame but there was already a
first flame present in the world there
can't be two first Flames due to this
the the flame that she created couldn't
be contained for long causing it to
erupt and this not only consumed her and
her children but also created new life
as it gave birth to Demons the Asylum
Taurus and cpra Demon roughly the first
three bosses in the game were created
from this event in fact anything that
has the word demon in it is most likely
derived from this flame of chaos but not
only was New Life created old life was
altered all of isela's family who were
caught in the explosion were all
transformed into demons themselves chaos
which quag the fair lady and ceaseless
discharge are three of eth's children
just as Gwyn was desperate to continue
the age of fire in an attempt to keep
what he had so too did isth but the
consequences are reflection of her
actions in an attempt to give life to
something bright and warm she ended up
giving life to something cold and dark
she also wanted to extend the age of
fire in order to continue her prosperous
life with her children but by doing so
she ended up making their lives a living
hell not a single person in this family
tree is living a robust life anymore
quag and her sister the fair lady are
half demon and are more than likely
suffering from their condition as told
To Us by the fair lady
qu what is
it
quog my dear sister the eggs it
hurts they've gone still I am
afraid it may be too late I am so
sorry dear Sister C's discharge was
covered in lavasa surus and birth so his
life was a living hell from the start
the flame of chaos just made it worse
ceaseless discharge just like Priscilla
doesn't actually want to fight us it's
only until we steal this clothing set
that he attacks us this clothing set
rests upon a grave that belonged to his
sister quana who he believes died in the
explosion when in fact she was the only
one who escaped quana will appear in
Blight Town if the player is efficient
enough in pyromancy quana explains that
she was the only one who made it out of
the reaches of the flame of Chaos in
fact she was actually able to harness
the power of the flame of chaos and
create Magic which we know as pyromancy
quana wants us to fulfill her Duty for
her as she does not have the strength to
go on she instructs us that we need to
put down her siblings and her mother so
that they may rest in peace this whole
family Dynamic is horrific as ceaseless
believes that all his sisters are dead
even though quana is alive and quana is
only a few meters from her sister and
yet we can tell her about this clearly
this is turning into a very depressing
story but it only gets worse as we get
closer to the final boss of the area
we'll meet with a pyroman who was
assumed to be another daughter of isth
although it's unclear why she is so far
down in these ruins yet is completely
unharmed it's possible that she like
quana escaped the flame of chaos but
this daughter came back to finish off
the boss right behind her or has
possibly gone insane and is now
defending said boss and by going down
this slide we will meet this monstrosity
who is the Bed of Chaos this is the
witch of isth one of the four most
powerful people in the world has been
demoted to this deformed tree likee
creature there are also these orbs next
to her that we need to destroy in order
to damage her and it's assumed by many
that these are her other two daughters
that were closest to her when the flame
erupted so we have two daughters stuck
to their mother two daughters who were
half afflicted by the flame a son who is
arguably the most affected and two
daughters who managed to survive one who
doesn't have the strength to carry on
anymore and another who sits outside her
mother's Arena this is by far the most
depressing story I've ever had The
Misfortune of uncovering the further we
push into lost isth the more of the
family we get to meet allowing us to see
the consequence es of her actions we can
see the pain that all of them are in as
some of them are just wishing for their
siblings back and others just want to
stay alive it's an awful story that all
leads to the final fight with isth
herself and it is by far the most
anticlimactic ending I've ever
experienced it is agreed upon by many
that the Bed of Chaos is the worst fight
in Dark Souls 1 the boss is insanely
difficult but it's not the difficulty
itself that's the issue it's why the
boss is difficult I would argue that
just within the main game the two
hardest bosses are the Four Kings in
orstein and smoke ow ands are difficult
bosses because there's two of them you
have to have both on screen at all times
or you'll lose this fight this is
balanced by having orstein be fast but
not as lethal and SM being slow and
hard-hitting it's a wonderful dichotomy
that makes for a satisfying fight and
the Four Kings is a DPS check as every
30 to 45 seconds a second king will
spawn and this will keep going until
four on your screen at once to succeed
you need to kill the current King before
this happens both boss fights are hard
but have weaknesses you can exploit the
Bed of Chaos has none to defeat the boss
you need to destroy both orbs on her
sides then go down the middle inside of
her so you can find the source of her
power she's actually extremely weak as
both the orbs and her die in one hit
it's getting there that's the issue her
hand attack is oddly timed and due to
her design it's unclear where her hit
box ends after defeating one of the orbs
the floor will start to crumble so not
only do you need to avoid her attacks
but you'll also need to avoid the floor
there's also a strict path you're meant
to follow for this fight which will lead
you right next to a broken piece in the
flooring so you'll more than than likely
get hit and fallen and die the walk back
to this boss is also just as atrocious
as you'll more than likely spend more
time walking to the boss than actually
fighting her thankfully there is no
reset involved in this boss as every
single run you've done is carried over
to the next as it essentially has
unlimited checkpoints it's like from
software knew it was bad but still kept
it in even if I actually enjoyed the
fight the payoff narratively isn't worth
the time we ventured further and further
into the depths of lost isth coming
across all of her children who were
these hideous beasts that did incredible
damage and she's just a puzzle The Witch
of isth has one of the best Back stories
in the game as the tale of her children
is heartbreaking and being able to see
their conditions face to face does take
a lot out of you but it's completely
soured by a boss fight that is
mechanically and narratively a letdown
our third Lord Soul belongs to grave
Lord Neato and he's interesting to say
the least Neato might have the most
detailed boss design but the most basic
story out of all the four Lords if you
were to just assume that Neato simply
became the Grim Reaper and just
administered death you wouldn't be far
off off which is a shame for someone of
his importance grave Lord Neato lives in
the Tomb of giants which is accessed via
the catacombs both these arish Sher
similar theme of death as this is where
the dead are buried so we know that he
administers death but what else does he
do well not much else he does have a
covenant that you can join but their
goal is just to spread more death across
the world it seems like he doesn't care
about what's going on in the world as
the only reason he attacks you is
because we're obviously here with
malicious intent Neo doesn't have any
lore regarding his life during the age
of fire and it's just about about him
administering death from this we can
infer that Neato either doesn't care
about the age of fire or maybe even just
wants the age of Darkness to occur the
only other bit of lore surrounding him
is a boss named pin wheel who was a
necromancer presumably made up of three
people as referenced by the number of
masks on the body who stolen item from
him known as the right of kindling there
are quite a few theories regarding pin
wheel like the fact that pin wheel was
originally a father but his wife and
child died so he attempted to resurrect
them but it failed and some have stated
further that he's still trying to figure
out how to revive them as we can see
skeleton throughout the room which could
be seen as his test subjects but other
than that we've pretty much discussed
all of Neato there isn't anything else
to speak about which is a real shame his
backstory has a massive amount of
potential but it just felt unfinished
there are no major themes tied to Neato
he's just kind of exists our final Lord
Soul belongs to se the scalas SE as we
remember Allied himself with our four
Lords and attacked the dragons the
reason he did this was because SE unlike
the other dragons was not Immortal all
the other dragons had impenetrable
scales that could not be broken with any
type of weapon SE was not born with
these scales so in a sense he was not
Immortal it was only until Gwyn was
given their weakness from SE which we
know is lightning that Gwyn was able to
pierce the dragon scales and actually
kill them SE was envious of his Brethren
as they had what he didn't so as thanks
for working with Gwyn he was named the
Duke and given the duk's archives as
well as some of Gwynn's lord soul for
power during the war SE found the
primordial Crystal an item that gave him
temporary immortality but during this
time in the Duke's archives he
eventually went mad with his experiments
and his research he is considered the
grandfather of sorcery as well as the
creator of these creatures and the
Moonlight Butterfly our first
interaction with SE is that he ends up
killing us and throwing us in a prison
cell we can see that theme of
desperation as SE is trying everything
he can to get what he wants but in the
process it made him mad he's not as
mindful of his actions as he used to be
and is sort of a shadow of his former
self one thing I find interesting in
this prison is the abundance of Miracle
related items and the clothing that are
scattered throughout the prison it's
possible that clerics were deemed
suitable subjects for SE experiments
maybe this is due to their magical power
or because they were so easy to defeat
to kill SE though we need to head to the
Crystal Caves which I was originally
going to say was probably the worst
level in this game due to half the map
being invisible but the walk to the boss
is surprisingly straightforward
venturing off that path though is where
the problem lies to defeat SE we need to
break his primordial Crystal so that we
can sever his immortality giving us a
chance to kill him the story of these
Lords caused a bit of an imbalance
throughout my playthrough you can go
through lost isth and the demon ruins
which is filled with Rich lore tons of
backstory and compelling bosses that fit
with the lore surrounding the witch of
isth but then you go to the Four Kings
and just find out that they were Lords
of new Lando who got tricked by coth and
consumed by the abyss it feels jarring
going from one to the other as one feels
thorough while the other feels
incomplete like you miss something or
there was more that should have been
said I don't think every boss needs to
have a multi-page Wikipedia article in
order for it to be considered a good
story I think that the boss's story said
would needed to be said in regards to
the overarching plot but I can't lie to
you and tell you that I didn't leave
these locations wanting more I wanted to
know more about the 4 Kings and how they
roast to power and I wanted to know more
about Neato and SE in general but I
never got that and I guess in a way this
could be viewed as a positive as I
didn't walk out of these places not
wanting to learn them at all but rather
wanted to learn more the game invested
me so much into its story thanks to its
characters and environmental
storytelling that I wanted the game to
provide me with more information on it I
wanted to be encapsulated by this story
more than I already was as with many
Souls games not all answers are
explicitly told to us but there was
still a lot of burning questions I had
that never got mentioned with the Lord
souls in the vessel we are now able to
fight gwin but we still have one final
location we need to visit which is the
land of ulil accessed by the artorius of
the Abyss DLC the one and only DLC that
Dark Souls 1 would have we start this
DLC by defeating this Gold Golem that
has a woman named dusk captured inside
dusk was the princess of a place called
ulil according to her it's a place from
an age that existed long ago hilariously
ly enough she doesn't actually say
anything after this you would think that
the DLC would sort of spin a story that
her home is in danger and we need to
save her but she doesn't actually tell
us that she just sells us sorceries the
DLC doesn't officially start though
until we return back to her location
with an item called the broken pendant
which causes us to get sucked in into
this portal and taken to UIL as dusk
said ulil is a place from long ago and
while you may be confused on how this
fits within the geography of lordran
this place is a lot closer than you
think in fact we already ran through it
to get to the DL see the dark R Garden
is ulil this is evident by the tree
enemies who have a similar design to
these tree likee enemies and the same
plans that are only found in the dark R
Garden are also found here as well ulil
was a city hundreds of years before the
dark R Garden came to be so something
happened that made this place turn into
the garden that we know of well to
understand the story of ulil we need to
talk to Elizabeth but princess dusk is
here no longer snatched away by that
horrifying primeval human and so I must
ask ask couldst thou once more play the
Savior an abyss was begat of the ancient
beast and threatens to swallow the whole
of ulil Knight artorius came to stop
this but such a hero has nearly a murmur
of dark without doubt he will be
swallowed by the abyss overcome by its
utter Blackness indeed the abyss may be
unstoppable still I have faith that
princess dusk may be rescued yet this
Prime evil human is Manis of the Abyss
the final boss of the DLC and the thing
that sucked us into ulil in the first
place so our job is to hunt manace down
my main gripe with the DLC is
justification as technically with the
Lord vessel we can just leave so why do
we need to worry about this it's not an
immersion breaking problem but it is a
shame while traveling to the land of
ulil you will come across this Coliseum
like structure which is where we get to
meet our next boss artorius of the Abyss
artorius was one of the Four Knights of
Gwyn the other three are Hawkeye goth
who is sitting at the top of the tower
right next to the Coliseum kin who
appears in the Coliseum after we defeat
artorius and the final KN is orstein
each of them were skilled in their own
ways as Hawkeye used his powerful grabow
to shoot down dragons in fact he can
actually help us shoot down calam who is
the last of the ancient dragons Ornstein
also used his spear that was able to cut
through the scales of dragons with ease
and we can also see The Spoils of his
War due to the amount of dragon heads
exist in an Orlando artorius is also
able to wield his great sword with
Incredible finesse and cabon used her
two daggers to cut down anyone who
opposed Gwynn's rule but all of them
minus orstein are way past their Prime
which is a growing theme amongst the
entire series goth was imprisoned in
this Tower with nothing left to do but
to make carvings he also couldn't use
his great bow anymore as all the dragons
have been wiped out so he has no purpose
kierin may have had a deep love for
artorius as when we visit her she is
next to a grave she made for him and
asks if we can give her his soul if we
do she gives us her weapon weens and
continues to sit by the grave implying
that she no longer wants to be a knight
anymore and artorius came to uio and
attempt to stop the abyss from spreading
but ended up losing and being corrupted
himself his left arm is also dangling
which might suggest that it's broken
this is because he used his shield to
protect his wolf companion CF the same C
from the main game although he is much
smaller in this DLC C also has a
different intro if you do the DLC first
because ulio is in the past so he'll
remember you in the present and it makes
killing him that much harder in regards
to CF it's possible that he doesn't want
us getting the Covenant of the Abyss
ring as that allows us to travel through
the abyss to kill the Four Kings and
given his owner's condition CIF probably
doesn't want us to end up like artorius
the artorius boss fight was actually
really entertaining he was the first
boss that felt like the antithesis of
this game's combat most of the game's
Pace has been very slow and methodical
but he has these fast attacks and very
few openers I do wish though that there
was at least an ounce of buildup to this
fight as you can literally start the DLC
and be at the boss room in about 10
minutes I think having the player
traversed some of the areas that are
covered in these Abyss creatures that
grow in number as we get closer to
artorius would have been great as it's
slowly leading us towards this person
responsible for all this death while
narratively it felt a bit too fast for
me the fight mechanically was great
after artorius we can explore the rest
of uio and we can see how much this land
has been affected by the abyss as all
the inhabitants have been infected by
this dark energy turning them into these
disgusting creatures eventually we'll
reach the bottom and this feeling of
fear starts to set in as the world
becomes darker and darker the further we
go down here in the chasm of the Abyss
is where the darkness reaches its peak
and it's where these dark Sprites of
humanity live these are very similar in
design to the actual Humanity we consume
in game this seems to be Humanity in a
more physical form one that is more
exposed and not constricted by the dark
sign at the foot of the chasm is our
final boss Manis the father of the Abyss
manace has an interesting story
apparently the people of ulil were
tricked by a serpent who was probably
coth into digging mance's grave up in
doing so it caused Manus to go wild and
unleash his wrath upon them according to
his soul Manus was once a human became
father of the Abyss when his humanity
went wild and now he eternally seeks his
broken pendant the same pendant we had
to find to start the DLC it's unclear
why he liked this pendant so much but it
was possibly nostalgic to him or was
given to him by someone he loved and
because this pendant was so important to
him he did everything he could to get it
back which inevitably drove him to
Insanity it seems that he got so
desperate to find the pendant that he
pulled in random people into this world
as the NPC marvelous Chester is clearly
not from this world and he even says so
himself he also kind of looks like the
hunters from bloodborne which is a nice
reference to the game the main question
many within the community have though is
who was Manis before he became his
current deformed State well we really
don't know many have said it's the fer
of pygmy and I like that idea but I
think it's less interesting than that
many of the spells in this DLC say that
they were created by an uilian sorcerer
on the brink of Madness I can't help but
think that this is perfect for mance's
description one thing that is
interesting is that in the middle of the
arena is a grave with a Humanity shaped
hole so maybe manace was one of these
Humanity Sprites when he died or that
this is what he turned into when he died
regardless it's a very interesting
detail I also couldn't get any footage
of this as she disappears when you leave
the boss room but dusk apparently
appears out of manace when we kill him
meaning that he kidnapped her this may
confuse some people as dusk has been
sort of all over the place in this game
and due to her going from the past to
the present it sort of screws with the
time of it it seems like she was sent
into our time somehow and was captured
by this Golem she then disappears and
goes back into her time which then leads
to the abyss incident with the people of
ulil artor is then called to defeat the
abyss but fails and then we get summoned
into this world via mance's hand then
save Dusk and go back to the present
it's still a little confusing and the
world of Dark Souls is also very
confusing when it comes to time as
always during this fading of the fire
time is very convoluted cuz we can
summon people as Phantoms and the time
sort of stops it's very confusing but
that's how I think it went down but with
Mana dead we have officially finished
the DLC however this won't be the last
time we'll hear of Manis but that's for
Dark Souls 2 artorius of the Abyss was a
great DLC while it does lack in
motivation in regards to the player the
actual story of the DLC was great it
provides us with a nice timeline of
events as well as more insight into the
abyss and its effects on the world and
while not known at the time it would
eventually set up the plot to Dark Souls
2 it is without a doubt a worthy
extension to the game story but now we
can finally go to the Kil of the first
flame and determine the fate of lordran
the Kiln is coded in Ash and we can see
the spirits of those who followed Gwyn
into the Kil walk around aimlessly as we
approach the first flame we have one
person in our way and that is the Lord
of sunlight himself earlier I said Gwyn
sacrificed himself to rekindle the flame
and he did but because of his Lord
Soul's power he was able to keep his
body but his mind was gone Gwyn has gone
Hollow and while I'm more than capable
of killing him myself I couldn't dare
start the fight without the guy who's
been by my side since the very beginning
Solara vastor is easily the most
well-known NPC in the entire Souls
franchise and his story is a perfect
representation of the mood this game is
trying to convey throughout the whole
game we've been meeting with NPCs of all
kinds some with goals and others without
but none of them have managed to touch
my heart in a way that cair and sigm did
both of them had a goal in mind one
wants to find his sunlight and the other
wants to explore the world but both are
stuck sigm always seems to be getting
himself caught in some situation whether
that be a locked gate he can't enter or
a poison swap he can cross and salair
can find his sunlight they both
willingly became Undead in order to
achieve their goals and it tore me apart
to hear that sigm couldn't see it
through sigm Prides himself on being a
knight of Katarina and that he can
handle all of his troubles on his own
but with my help showed him that he
wasn't a worthy Knight after all and
that he always needed someone to rescue
him more often than not in these games
your assistance will lead to their death
so it's either converse with them and
enjoy their company knowing that they
will die because of you or distance
yourself from them knowing that while it
hurts it's better that they get to Live
Another Day NPCs of these games will
usually end up achieving a terrible fate
but this sadness makes the few times a
happy outcome occurs all the better
Solair wasn't able to find Sunlight of
his own he became depressed and wondered
if this journey was really worth taking
conveying the tone of the entire game is
our journey and our struggle really
worth it in the end which is why I owed
it to him to make it right it may not be
the actual Sun but the first flame could
be considered the Sun so for one final
time I summoned cair and we took down
lord Gwyn
gwinn's theme has such a fitting tune
all these bosses have these intense
sounds with loud music but gwyns is such
a simple piano it's not intense it's
almost sad in a way that the most
powerful man in the world has been
reduced to nothing and what was supposed
to be a glorious fight between two
Warriors really isn't it makes it all
the more worse when you realize that
Gwyn can be parried and once you nail
this timing down this fight is a
cakewalk for the showing how far from
Grace he has truly fallen with Gwyn
defeated we can now choose our ending
but we aren't the only one who is able
to choose since we managed to bring
Solair all the way to the end of the
game he was able to also fight gwin in
his own world thanks to the convoluted
timelines of Dark Souls and it is
canonized that he succeeded and linked
the flame in his own world he became the
sunlight he was searching for and that
might be one of the greatest endings in
the entire franchise but while salair
linked the flame that doesn't mean we
have to if we choose the age of fire the
world continues we rekindled the flame
flame and use ourselves as kindling to
continue this age of fire if we instead
choose to leave we let the flame
extinguish itself We join the primordial
serpents including cth and probably
framp and Usher in an age of dark one
whereare humanity is at the top and we
ourselves are the ruler at least that's
what we think will happen like many
plots in the soul Series this is once
again left up to interpretation we only
get to see the very beginning of our
choice so anything after is just pure
speculation who knows what will happen
after and who knows if our choice was
really the correct one that's always
been up to the player to decide but I've
always felt that these endings are about
Comfort do we stay comfortable knowing
that in the age of fire we aren't on top
and might be mistreated due to our lack
of strength or do we take the risk and
see what the age of dark is about one
thing to note though is the
circumstances regarding these endings
Fram says that the undead curse will be
cured if we go with the age of fire and
not even C says anything about this when
we talk with him about it so does that
mean that we'll stay Undead or at least
still have the risk of going Hollow in
the age of dark furthermore the age of
fire was a time ruled by the gods and
they did what they could to keep it that
way but we killed them everyone in Anar
Londo that is a God is either dead or
gone gwindel is the only one that
canonically lives thanks to Dark Souls 3
so even though an age of fire can be
seen as the age of gods that might not
be true anymore as we took care of most
of them so there is positives and
negatives both ways and that's really
been the point there's never going to be
a clear answer it's just whatever you
think is right as for me I think an age
of dark is the proper way to go as we
said in the intro the world of Dark
Souls is like a set of operations things
come and things go and the age of dark
should have followed after the age of
fire but du to when breaking the rules
of the world world that didn't happen so
I think in an attempt to set things back
on track before further destruction an
age of dark is the way to go regardless
of what happens in this age of dark at
the very least things will transition
back to the way it was supposed to be
however that might not be the actual
ending given the future titles some have
debated on proper endings and given the
status of Dark Souls 3 linking the flame
I think is the real ending and is
definitely the most agreed upon as just
about every person in this game will'll
speak about linking the flame we only
hear about the guge of dark from coth
who we have to jump through several
Hoops to just even meet I can almost
guarantee someone has gone throughout
the entire game and didn't even know
that an age of dark was the real option
because of how hidden it is and while
it's not my preferred ending continuing
the age of fire would set in motion
numerous events for us to discover Dark
Souls 1 was a fantastic experience from
start to finish and while the road was a
little bumpy sometimes along the way it
story wrapped up wonderfully it's a game
that I recommend you play at least once
in your lifetime as you will never get
to experience something like this ever
again but we're just getting started
Dark Souls 2 is a brilliant game it
takes into account the age of fire and
the age of dark and asks the question
why are there only two options and then
continues this idea by shutting out both
ages by making something else the main
plot of the story something that I will
explain throughout this video so without
further Ado let's get started so before
we start talking about the story we need
to address the game as a whole Dark
Souls 2 requires a different mindset in
order to grasp what the game is trying
to tell you as we saw in Dark Souls 1
the game relied heavily on the cycles of
the world to be the main plot it's all
about the age of fire and the age of
dark and what these Cycles mean how they
impact the world and what age we'll
choose when we get to the end this means
it also relies heavily on the world
itself Dark Souls one was about our four
Lords how they Rose to power and what
they did with that power and what the
state of the world is because of sad
power as such we play a very
insignificant person in regards to the
overall world but Dark Souls I isn't
like that it's not about the age of fire
and the fate of the world it's about one
Kingdom and how this one Kingdom handled
its own cycle Lord dam was important as
it was the first Kingdom in the age of
fire but Drang Lake isn't important at
all it's just one of the hundreds of
kingdoms built on the same land and
that's what makes Dark Souls 2 so
special it's the insignificance of this
game that makes it so compelling because
it isn't tied down by the world's
Pantheon it uses what Dark Souls 1
created as a way to write its own story
this game isn't about the Cycles it's
about one small part of the Cycles the
undead curse and the quicker you realize
that Dark Souls I is reshaping the
proverbial mold that is Dark Souls 1 the
better this game gets but to explain why
we need to start playing our opening
cinematic shows our character collapsing
in a rainy Forest the narrator talks
about the undead curse and how it will
infect your mind how it has the ability
to remove all that you hold dear and all
that you remember with every minute the
curse gets worse and worse until you go
Hollow is that is the Fate for all
Undead but this narrator speaks of a
kingdom called Drang Lake and how we'll
walk towards its gate without ever
knowing why we know why we're here in
Drang Lake as our characters trying to
find a cure for the undead curse so they
no longer feel its effects but they're
unsure of why Drang Lake specifically
just as the Mind gravitates towards the
smell of food when hungry the mind of
the undead is drawn to souls and Drang
Lake has plenty of them to to get to Dr
Lake we must cross a lake and enter a
portal the scene tries to portray this
event as some marvelous spectacle but
that couldn't be farther from the truth
once we cross this gate we're never
coming back we'll either be trapped here
until we cure the curse or go Hollow the
gate is even surrounded by bright bugs
which are known to comfort the dead
almost like it's luring us to our deaths
so for one final Time We Gather our
thoughts and jump
on the other side of this portal is the
things betwix a place stuck in limbo
that serves as a connection between
Drang Lake and the outside world like I
said we're stuck here for good inside
this limbo was a house of women three of
whom are FireKeepers that are being
cared for by their housekeeper and
they're very honest about our arrival
you're
finished you'll go
Hollow yes you will become one of
them Hollows pray upon men Feast upon
their
souls this is the fate of the
cursed we aren't the first Undead to
walk through their doors and we won't be
the last and all of them have met the
same fate so what makes us any different
Dark Souls 2 tries to set in this
feeling of hopelessness so something
that's very consistent throughout the
trilogy no one truly believes we can
accomplish our goal but that's what
makes the emerald Herald so wonderful
she believes that we can succeed in our
goal and will help us in any way that
she can and by providing us the means to
level up she might be the most helpful
person in the game this is why the level
up ladies of the franchise have always
been seen in such a positive light they
don't discriminate and they don't bother
questioning if what we're doing is
working they have an undying motivation
to help us succeed regardless of if
there's something to gain from it
they're like a bright light in a dark
tunnel as all around them are people who
have given up I am
solden and like you I lost everything
and now I'm here the location they both
reside in is majula a small town on the
outskirts of Dr Lake and its the music
displays a feeling of Peace a place that
is void of death a place that you can
feel comfortable in and in the world of
Dark Souls a place like that is more
than necessary I've always preferred
when the main hubs were seamlessly
integrated into the world something that
would be eventually lost with the series
going forward as it makes the world more
believable and in the case of bajula
without it you'd be missing this
beautiful scenery after taking in the
view we can speak to the emerald Herald
who reveal our objective seek those
whose names are
unutterable the four endowed with
immense
Souls these four beings are known as the
four great ones the Lost Sinner the Old
Iron King the rotten and the Duke's Dear
Freya just like before we have four
beings that need to be slain in order to
continue and just like Dark Souls 1 how
we go about killing them and in what
order we want to go in is entirely up to
us but one thing to point out though is
that the emerald Herald isn't a firek
keeper at least she wasn't originally
her real name is Shanel lot and she was
given this name by the dragons her
purpose was to break the undead curse
but seeing as there is thousands of
Hollows in Drang Lake she clearly failed
her goal now is to just rest at majula
guiding the Undead on their Journey To
Succeed King Vendrick before we go
though I want to talk about the NPCs I
think Dark Souls 2 really dropped the
ball when it came to these characters
many of them are extremely forgettable
and seem to only be placed in the world
so that the player can be given a
tangible item rather than an engaging
story Benard of Joo is a good example as
he seems like a compelling character
that may have a memorable Quest all for
it to crumble almost immediately his
whole quest line revolves around his
family heirloom the giante teal sword
resting on his shoulder which you may
recognize as the moonlight great swword
except this one is a fake it doesn't
have the magical properties of the
original but benhart believes that with
enough strength he can unlock its true
power I would have dropped this Quest
entirely if it wasn't for the fact that
he gives us the sword at the end of it
he provides little to no substance to
the world and this goes for a vast
majority of characters we meet there are
over 40 NPCs in this game and about 90%
of them provide the player with a
service and some of their services are
either outclassed or completely useless
logr is the Mula blacksmith but the
player may find McDuff another
blacksmith except McDuff can do
everything lass can do but with the
added bonus of being able to infuse
weapons and gavon is a lonely Merchant
who only sells five items four of which
are poison he also has three set
locations so in order to purchase his
Services you'll need to go out of your
way to find him and that's if you really
want poison equipment there's just so
much clutter as half these characters
could literally just combine into one
General Goods Merchant thankfully it's
not all bad lucatiel has a wonderful
quest line as she shows us the horrific
reality that is the undead curse she was
a warrior of mea but now she barely
remembers who she is by the time we get
to the end of her quest line she's
practically pleading for us to remember
her name as she may not remember it
herself it's unclear why she came to
Drang Lake in the first place but given
that her brother astil will invade us
only a few feet from her final location
it's possible that she was looking for
him but now both of them have succumbed
to the curses Affliction never truly
knowing what happened to the other
thankfully lucao isn't the only
character of note in this game as the
feud between kraton and pate and the
peaceful conversations with venaro were
fantastic being able to take the role of
a detective and truly uncover which one
is telling the truth and then choosing a
side before one prevails was a great
investigation and the fact that a
talking head can get me to listen to his
life's story as he thinks about his past
life and how much he despises it shows
me that this game has some wonderful
stories that are just waiting to be
uncovered you just have to weed through
the dozens of merchants in order to find
them getting back on track we're still
on the hunt for the four great ones once
again this is similar to Dark Souls 1
but instead of ringing the bells of
Awakening and then finding the Lord
Souls we just have to find the souls
already if you remember from that video
on Dark Souls 1 I said that the bells of
Awakening section was a bit slow is not
much in terms of plot was happening it
wasn't until we rang them that the story
really started to take off well in Dark
Souls 2 it's the same unless you look at
the bigger picture before we get to the
four great ones there are a lot of other
areas we need to go through first for
example to get to the Lost Center we
need to go through majula to Hay's Tower
of flame to No Man's dwarf through the
Lost Bast steel and then to Center's
rise with the boss is located all these
locations will seem pointless and if you
just only do this boss fight it will
continue to feel like that it isn't
until later in the game when the climax
hits that things start to make sense no
man's Warf is a small Port town and its
final boss is the flexile sentury the
Sentry's job was to take as many Undead
as they could fit on this boat and send
them to the Lost Bas steel which is a
prison for the undead but this isn't the
only location to have lore regarding the
curse the huntsman's cops was a hunting
ground for the old iron King's Men Who
were tasked with killing any Undead on
site but as you would expect they too
also succumb to the curse next to this
area is the undead purgatory where a
chariot Rider continually kills and
punishes the undead it's also possible
that these necromancers were purposely
stationed here this may imply that the
necromancers were used to resurrect the
undead so that they can be repeatedly
killed for entertainment like I said
this game does not focus on the cycles
of the world it's all about the curse
and this is only discovered once we get
further in the game but in the beginning
it may seem a bit overplayed that's why
it's required to have a different
mindset going into this game if you're
thinking about the cycle in this game's
lore will be boring and repetitive but
it's actually brilliant once everything
comes together as these early areas are
showing how different rulers are
reacting to the curse and what their
actions are as a result of it and
speaking of rulers one of them happens
to be one of the four great ones the Old
Iron King resides in the Iron Keep but
to get there we must pass through the
Huntsman cops which we know is the place
the Old Iron King sent his men to hunt
the undead behind this location is
Harvest Valley and earn Peak two areas
that are coded in Poison thanks to one
individual Mitha the banful queen
mytha's story is rather tragic she
wasn't a originally like this monster we
see today she was a beautiful queen but
her drive to win her beloved's heart
back is what drove her to such lengths
myth's story though does have some
complications she is named both Queen
and Princess in that she loved a prince
and sought the king's affection her
story is very confusing cuz we don't
really understand whether she was a
queen and a princess or just one of them
but whoever this person was it's clear
they did not love her un thus she began
using poison as a way to obtain Beauty
but this came with its own set of
problems as the poison started turning
her into a like monster and yet while
she was sulking around her room day in
and day out trying to win the heart of a
man she unknowingly already succeeded in
doing just that the Covetous Demon was a
human Who Loved Mitha and cherished her
no matter what form she took he tried to
Showcase his love for her through
gluttony but this too would change him
and turn him into the monster we see
today but despite his change in
appearance his love for the queen never
wavered behind the poisonous swamp of
Earth and Peak is the Iron Keep home of
the Old Iron King The Old Iron King was
a lord of very little power but he would
then eventually meet a knight called Sir
Alon who trained to soldiers in the art
of battle the Old Iron King would then
eventually build his kingdom but doing
so cost him almost all his assets but
one day he discovered an iron producing
Miracle this allowed him to control iron
to his heart's content which led to the
Iron Keep a giant Fortress made entirely
of iron he started creating Soldiers
made entirely of iron and even a demon
of fire called the Smelter Demon this
idea of creating things of Free Will
with only raw materials is also related
to the undead Chariot which of course
was his creation so he's quite familiar
with this craft eventually for whatever
reason sir alone would leave the Iron
Keep and set out in search of unknown
lands after losing his most trusted
Knight The Iron King sought the Council
of a man named agel he was presumably a
pyromancer due to his goal of trying to
give fire a will of its own the two
worked together to create the
aforementioned Smelter Demon but this
would bring disastrous consequences to
the keep the two never considered that
by giving Something Free Will it has the
chance to turn on its creator and the
Smelter Demon did just that with one
swing it obliterated the Iron King and
sent him into the lava it was born from
this act also caused the lava to take on
a much larger form and crash into the
Iron Keep consuming it in lava as we see
now but while the keep and its soldiers
were scrambling to Higher Ground
something else happened the iron King's
body came in contact with an old soul
the Old King Soul so those in the
present day he's known as the one who
shall not be named but for us we know
him is Gwyn when killed the Old Iron
King will drop the iron King's soul but
it's only on New Game Plus that we
uncover the truth that the Old Iron King
has come to possessed the very soul that
Gwyn possessed all those years ago but
the Old Iron King isn't the only one
each of our four great ones has come in
contact with a soul that belonged to a
notable character from the past game but
not only did it give them strength it
may have also carried with it the
emotions of those it belong to both Gwyn
and the Old Iron King share a theme of
power Gwyn wanted to keep his Godlike
power and as such took multiple steps in
order to achieve that like linking the
first flame branding Humanity with the
dark sign and tossing things he felt
could threaten their rule into the
painted world of Aramis and while his
feelings weren't as Fierce as gwis the
Old Iron King also desired power he
wanted to ensure a protected and
impenetrable Kingdom while also
relishing and the power that comes of
being a king so he used his power to
create a giant Kingdom with skilled
Knights and dozens of monstrous
creatures made from Iron and then
displayed his power by tormenting the
undead for sport and torturing them
endlessly simply because he could but
while the Iron King tortured Undead
against their will there was one person
whose torture was self-imposed located
in the center's rise underneath the Lost
ptio is a prisoner who willingly
imprisoned themselves for the sins of
their past according to Shala quar
maula's resident feline her sin was that
she tried to light the first flame but
the key word is light implying that it
had already gone out so how would this
be considered a sin if anything it would
be the opposite sadly we never truly
know what any of it means one thing we
do know is whose Soul she possesses
before the boss fight starts a bug
crawls into her eye specifically a chaos
bug the same one from Lost isth she is
in possession of the witch of isth Soul
we know that these bugs have mind
controlling capabilities as evidenced by
the bad ending of cair's quest line so
it's possible that the Lost Sinner
intended to let us into her cell until
the chaos bug felt threatened but it's
still doesn't answer the question
regarding herself self imprisonment
maybe she wanted to keep the chaos bug
and turn her from escaping as this craz
version of the law cner could have run
rampant and Slaughter dozens of people
or maybe she's somehow feeling the
emotions of isth who probably felt the
men's guilt for creating the Bed of
Chaos so maybe this feeling of guilt is
being transferred over to the LW CER
without her knowing to this day it's
still a mystery but a very compelling
one at that the witch of Isa had a
desire to create life which is why she
wanted to make a new first flame but she
wasn't the only one who had desires but
that that being's Legacy may have
created even more Devastation than
intended the Duke's Dear Freya is a
spider who is in possession of se's soul
but se's feelings and desires are able
to engulf those who come in contact with
it Freya Soul talks about a writhing
ruin and how this ancient Thing cast a
shadow over the land and that at some
point in its life it came in contact
with a solitary insect but grew its
power feasting on the wealth of Twisted
Souls found within the land if we defeat
Freya we can enter the Lord's private
Chambers which houses the Duke of sadora
himself and a cage that presumably
belonged to Freya the writhing ruin was
created from se's intense feeling of
want he searched endlessly for a way to
be immortal even when he was plagued by
insanity and it's because of how
powerful his desires were that they
seemed to linger on past his death the
writhing ruin would go on to possess
others in an attempt to obtain something
as he possessed a being that turned man
scorpion tar and his wife into half
human creatures it has this insatiable
urge to achieve something what that
something is will depend on the
individual SE wanted immortality and
Freya may have just wanted strength or
power regardless this writhing ruin will
presumably seek something until it
doesn't for eternity and ruin many lives
in the process it's obvious by now that
there seems to be a parallel between our
old cast and our new ones in regards to
their feelings and emotions whether they
received these similar feelings when
they came in contact with the old souls
or the souls were attracted to them
because of their feelings is unknown but
our old friends legacies continue to
bring disaster even after their death
but for one of them that may not be the
case our final great one is the rotten
in Mula there is a giant pit and
assuming you can get down there without
dying you'll arrive at the Grave of
Saints a catacomb that used to be a bar
IAL site before it was overrun by rats I
was admittedly a bit confused running
through here as I thought this was some
ongoing joke I wasn't aware of as
there's a literal rat talking to me
calling me his servant in the most
serious tone possible it's pretty
pointless and it's best if we ignore it
and moved on but sadly we won't be doing
much moving as much as we will be
falling Dark Souls 2 somehow managed to
surpass blle town in quality by making
the gutter a darker version of Bight
town all while being poisoned thanks to
these statues just like Bight town the
lore is quite similar as these are the
citizens of various kingdoms that were
tossed away out of sight from the rest
of the world after the gutter is the
Black Gulch the home of the rotten the
rotten possesses the soul of Neato but
instead of their emotions being similar
it seems to just be their appearance
Neato was an amalgamation of skeletons
and the rotten is an amalgamation of
dead bodies but where Neato was hellbent
on administering death throughout the
world the rotten seems to sort of
Embrace or Comfort it these statues
might possibly be the people who have
died down here in the pits he might be
trying to comfort these Hollows in their
new life and these statues seem to be a
showcasing of his feelings towards his
new Community what is rather odd though
is that these statues in the boss room
don't shoot poison at us so it's
possible that they weren't meant to
shoot poison originally and it's because
of this poisonous rot that is taken over
the pits that they're allowed to do so
through our discussion about the great
ones you obviously notice the
connections between our old and new cast
of characters but you may have also
noticed the lack of lore there is a lot
of information that is either completely
unclear or only given some amount of
weight thanks to the abundance of
theories from the community Dark Souls 2
is both the most understood and most
confusing game within the trilogy it
just depends on what answers you're
looking for however however I feel like
I'm content with this one thing that
bothered me about Dark Souls I as we
discussed before is that I left some of
these boss Arenas with more questions
and answers I wanted to know who the
Four Kings of nandoo were and how they
Rose to power I also wanted to know more
about Neato and his role in the world
after the war with the dragons and while
I definitely have similar questions
regarding some of our great ones I left
majority of these areas feeling complete
like I had learned what needed to be
learned and I uncovered the real story
and that's the benefit of creating
something like Dark Souls 2 we don't
really need to know what these great
ones did and how they shaped the fate of
the world because they didn't despite
how important many of the characters in
this game may seem at the end of the day
they're just another kingdom in a long
line of other kingdoms no one is going
to remember them and no one is going to
care about them that is why I feel
satisfied when leaving the black gulture
centers rise have uncovered enough lore
to get a generous picture of their life
with a few holes just big enough for me
to make some solid theories with all
four great ones slain we can now go to
Drang Lake Castle or can we
this is Alia the brother of king
Vendrick and the scholar of the first
sin Alia story is very unclear at the
moment but we'll eventually learn more
about him later once we enter Drang Lake
Castle we'll see this Phantom by the
name of Weller he's a sort of lore dump
which admittedly might not be the best
way to handle this information but given
the nature of of these games where you
can go a whole playthrough Without
Really knowing anything maybe it's
necessary regardless weer shares with us
some backstory on Drang Lake and
Vendrick King Vendrick conquered four
great ones and built a kingdom upon
their very souls he then met a lady
named nandra who warned Vendrick of
another looming threat these beings were
known as Giants King Vendrick would
eventually cross the Seas and battle
these Giants completely decimating their
civilization as a constellation prize he
took most of them prisoner and ran
experiments on them this is what led to
the creation of the Golems these beings
we see inside the castle and with the
Golems he was able to build Drang Lake
Castle later in the game we'll acquire
this item called the Ashen misted heart
this allows us to peer into the memories
of some specific beings most of these
memories are from dead Giants we come
across in the first level these all
showcase different sections of Drang
Lake being overrun by Giants and one of
them even shows us the location of the
giant Lord we see the destruction that
they left Drang Lake castle and and we
can also see how outmatch the soldiers
really were even though they outnumber
them three or four to one they're
getting decimated at every turn but
somehow they were able to persevere
considering there's no Giants in Dr Lake
but I think the person responsible for
some of this Victory Is Us these
memories operate like Olio from Dark
Souls 1 where we go back in time to
alter the past and then go back to the
present this may tie into a subtle hint
very early in the game the first boss in
Dark Souls I is the last giant whose
boss sold description reads the lord of
the Giants who had brought wreck and
ruin to the entire kingdom was said to
have been felled by an unknown Warrior
his beaten and broken remains were then
dragged beneath the stronghold where he
was sealed away this random giant Soul
references the giant Lord and also
describes the exact condition this giant
is in meaning this giant is the giant
Lord and that must mean the unknown
Warrior was us this might explain why he
thrashes his arms around trying to break
free as he remembers us and wants
revenge this is the complete backstory
of Drang Lake which gives us enough
answers to our questions but
simultaneously gives us new questions we
want answers to such as the whereabouts
of nandra well close to the top of the
castle is the queen herself the last
king of this land King Vendrick as he
was
called he found the strength to rule his
people and when the undead were born
cursed he found more strength to face
them but in the end he never took the
true
Throne visit
Vendrick we have no need for two
rulers so nandra wants us to find King
Vendrick as she says there is no need
for two rulers but she also mentions
that King Vendrick never took the throne
she just casually says this statement as
if this isn't some huge Revelation since
Gwyn people have been rekindling the
flame but Vendrick didn't but it doesn't
mean Vendrick wants to bring about an
age of dark he doesn't want either this
is even more unheard of as no one has
even attempted to invoke a third
solution to the fating of the first
flame but to learn more we need to find
Vendrick he resides in the undead crypt
but blocking our path is to two bosses
the Looking Glass Knight and vad the
Royal Aegis both of these fights were
fantastic both from the actual combat to
the design of the bosses I'm just upset
that it took this long for this feeling
to finally come to fruition I rambled
for quite a bit about the bosses in Dark
Souls 1 like how orstein and SM were
fantastic and how I despise the Bed of
Chaos but I haven't found the right time
to talk about the bosses in Dark Souls 2
as there really isn't much to say most
of them were pretty underwhelming for
the most part and this is down to a few
factors one was simply overleveling
since Dark Souls 2 has 32 bosses in the
main game it's very easy to miss some I
didn't find the Chariot or old dragon
slayer until much later when I Revisited
those area so I was a bit overprepared
for the boss fight Dark Souls 1 had a
really great way of gaing the players
progression while also guiding them down
a path which in turn made every fight
feel like a proper match it wasn't a
one-sided victory for the most part
there were a few exceptions like
windelin and pin wheel but they have
very low Health pools so it's a bit hard
to judge them the other two reasons are
just down to overall enjoyment and the
summons the majority of the boss in this
game not only have summonable NPCs but
multiple at that I had two summons for
the Looking Glass Knight and while the
game does attempt to balance this by
adding more Health we all know the main
strength of the summons is to be an
extra body for the boss to hit which
means less attention on us and more time
to get free hits in I will admit this
trivialized many fights the Smelter
Demon the rotten and probably a few
others were really easy with summons but
that comes to my next issue to complete
some of these NPC quest lines we talked
about earlier they need to be summoned
for bosses as someone who's trying to
get as much lore as possible in one
playthrough I needed to continue
continue the summons quest line so while
I was gaining more progress with the
NPCs it came at the cost of the quality
of the fights this makes me even more
disappointed as many of these quest
lines didn't even go anywhere so they
were just completely useless and wasted
my time some of the boss fights though
just sucked regardless I was pretty
disappointed with Chariot fight even
though it was a cool idea I just wasn't
a big fan of it and this game's
obsession with gang fights is quite
insane the ruined Sentinels and the
belfre Gargoyles were just not
entertaining in the slightest orstein
and SM only worked because of how
different they were in regards to their
move set and how the arena was designed
and the Bell Gargoyles were okay for the
most part since the second one didn't
come until halfway plus they used
different move sets the ruined Sentinels
were the same enemy copied three times
with zero obstacles to separate them
minus the one platform you start on and
the belfrey Gargoyles got way out of
hand with close to three or four at the
same time in the same Arena as the
original fight which is not that large
and very open I did manage to beat them
on my own so I was happy that I won but
only because I knew I'd never have to do
that fight again as for the four great
ones the old King was just awful even
though I had a summon with me his moves
would have been the same regardless and
they were almost too easy to evade the
other three were pretty good but nothing
spectacular they did provide some
intense moments but I did have to summon
lucatiel for two of them so I may have
missed some of that spectacle I will
recognize though that this entire
section is a very subjective take as a
boss's enjoyment largely depends on the
skill of the player and their build but
since this is all about my thoughts on
the game my opinion was that they were
pretty underwhelming for the most part
it felt like instead of focusing on
fewer bosses with unique engagements
they created more but at the cost of
their depth behind the Looking Glass
night is the Shrine of Amana and the
aforementioned Undead CP each of these
places were created specifically for the
dead both the mileno and the phito watch
over these respective places in an
attempt to guide the undead to their
final destination both of these
creatures have interesting backstories
as they were created by the old dead one
who we know as Neato both of them seem
to be a Reincarnation of Neo's Soul as
if he created them we would have seen
them in Dark Souls 1 but maybe they
didn't plan that far ahead when making
the games regardless it is a nice detail
and finally gives us some actual story
regarding Neato so I was more than happy
to listen to it it also continues to
reinforce the old one Soul descriptions
that mention how their souls still hold
power over the land as the power of
Neato and his obsession with all things
death are still utilized to this day as
for what they specifically do it seems
like the mil phito enchant or Comfort
the dead via song as their singing can
be heard throughout the level and the
phito are grave wardens who watch over
the dead both of these groups seem to
revolve around comforting the dead so
maybe Neato was a lot more like the
rotten than I had initially thought at
the very end of the crypt is vestad and
while the boss fight was great what
really piqued my attention was his soul
and the items acquired from that Soul
firstly his soul is a dark purple and
black color this is the same as the DLC
bosses from Dark Souls 1 I originally
thought that this was made to
distinguish the DLC from the main game
but it wasn't Until Dark Souls 2 that I
realized that the soul shape has actual
meaning this is an image of a normal
boss soul in this game next is from one
of the great ones and the other is of
those affected by the darkness both
Manis and the royal AES have the same
Soul meaning they're both affected by
the darkness and that's due in part to
him being down here since Vendrick
locked himself away in the Crypt another
detail that is interesting about vestad
here is that his soul can buy Miracles
specifically the sacred oath Miracle
which is used by Warriors who once sered
the god of Sun so it seems like the
Royal AIS belong to the same Covenant as
cair however we can see that this
miracle has either been warped or is
unable to be casted as he never actually
uses this in the fight and instead Buffs
himself with dark magic further showing
how dark his soul has become after the
Royal Aegis we can Vendrick and if you
expected some grand entrance then you're
playing the wrong
game just like when the most powerful
being in the game's world is reduced to
a hollow and Mindless State vendrick's
condition actually seems to be much
worse as Gwinn at least retain some of
his combat abilities but Vendrick can
barely swing his sword if he choose to
fight him all is not lost though for our
King as if we return with the Ashen Mist
Heart we can peer into his memories and
be able to talk with Vendrick prior to
his hollowing do you intend to link the
fire then you must first take the
throne prove your worth find the ancient
crowns seek adversity and they will be
yours Vendrick tells us to seek the
crowns these crowns belong to three
rulers and also happened to be R3 DLC
these DLCs not only provide us with
additional lore regarding other kingdoms
but also what caus these kingdoms to
collapse when we finish each DLC we can
gain a crown and after obtaining said
Crown we can talk to Vendrick for more
dialogue some of the dialogue is
relevant later but a common theme
throughout his speeches is the idea that
we're given a choice Al throughout Dark
Souls 1 we were told to link the flame
and that if we failed the age of dark
would arise and that would be the end of
the world but King Vendrick is more than
content with you making your own choice
this goes back to what we discussed
before vedric didn't want an age of fire
or an age of dark he just wanted to find
a way to break the curse this also ties
into his brother Alia and some of his
dialogue when we meet him again old man
trust fully the abusion of
life but is this so
wrong a construction of thead and
yet a world full of WS and
scandles noo I you intent for shattering
the Y spoiling this wonderful
for AIA is definitely the most
fascinating character in this game like
Vendrick he is completely aware that he
is unable to change the world in their
current state so he just observes and
sees what happens Alia says that the joy
of life is warm and Splendid but it's a
facade as the undead curse will
eventually come back but because of that
warmth that life brings us are we intent
on shattering this illusion we live in
and spoiling this false life we have or
are we content with our lives and
embrace the warmth and pleasure that
comes with it knowing full well that
it's a lie Alia just like the game wants
you to actually make a choice and not
blindly follow follow what some random
person will tell us use your own
experiences your own knowledge and your
own beliefs to come to an answer the way
this was crafted was absolutely
brilliant and it shows how impressive
the writing of this game truly is but
before we get to the DLC and obtain the
crowns we need to talk about the rest of
the content as to actually get the Ash
and Miss heart item we need to travel to
Alia's keep and the Dragon Shrine both
Alia and Vendrick sought to cure the
curse but had different methods of doing
so Vendrick shunned the undead as he
wanted them as far away from the kingdom
as possible that's why he threw them in
the undead prison of lost best steel in
here are hundreds of Undead including
some volatile variants as these were
created by Alia whereas ventri shun the
undead Alia embraced them as he felt
that the key to Breaking the curse was
within the undead themselves but he
didn't welcome them with open arms as
they were all subjected to his various
experiments but Alia went even further
with these tests and didn't just focus
on the undead but other species he even
recreated multiple dragons a race of
beings thought to be extinct by now
despite what their names imply though
both the guardian dragon and the ancient
dragon aren't actually dragons the
guardian dragon soul can allow us to
purchase the Wing Greatsword which
states that the Drakes are likely
descendants of ancient dragons this
implies that this is actually a Drake
and not a dragon furthermore we know the
dragons especially the original dragons
are gone as calamite was the last of the
ancient dragons this is still true as
the ancient dragon in Dark Souls I isn't
a dragon as it drops a soul of a giant
this thing used to be a giant and was
somehow configured by Alia through
rigorous experiments to look like an
ancient dragon to get the actual ancient
dragon soul we need to use the Ash and
Mist Heart again but this time in
freya's Boss Arena as it allows us to
see the memories of the Dead Dragon
hanging from the ceiling this memory
seems to show the original resting place
of this Dragon before it somehow made it
down here there's not a whole lot to
learn from this place other than the
fact that these large broken structures
look similar to the ones outside Alia
keep and there's only one place in the
world that we know that has giant
structures like this it is my belief
that this is Ash Lake it might not be
the entirety of Ash Lake as we don't
really know how far these trees went but
it seems to be at least some part of it
in regards to time this is most likely
during the war between Gwyn and the
dragons ashake exists did back then but
it wasn't the Ash Lake that we're
familiar with as if you remember it was
all gray before fire was born so the
memory was during the war with the
ancient dragons and the present day
location of Aldi's keep is where some
part of Ash Lake used to be with all the
areas covered we can head to the DLC and
it's advised to finish all the bosses
and content you missed before going
which is why I retraced my steps and
discovered the locations of the dark
lurker and the old dragon slayer I
didn't really find their stories that
interesting but I figured I would cover
them before we continue the old dragon
slayer seems to be someone who was using
orang Ste armor as a way to uphold his
legacy as not only does orstein have
other plans which we'll learn about in
Dark Souls 3 some have claimed that this
is a fragment of orin's old soul that
now possesses the armor which would
connect with the running theme of old
souls from the past games coming to the
present just like with the four great
ones as for the dark ler there's pretty
much nothing we know about this being at
all their soul states that they're a
remnant of some ancient dissipated being
and the color of their soul is not dark
implying that they weren't born or
consumed by the abyss like the Royal
Aegis or Manis they also look very
similar to the these beings in the
undead crypt that spawn when the bells
are rung given the color of the dark
lurker Soul it's possible that this
being was actually here to fight against
the abyss similar to artorius but there
is very little evidence to support this
Theory but now we can officially start
the DLC Dark Souls 2 eventually release
with three additional pieces of content
the crown of the sunken King the crown
of the Old Iron King and the crown of
the ivory King even the disjointed
nature of these DLCs they could be
played in any order as they don't
contradict one another but we'll just go
in the order of release the crown of the
sunken King starts near the shrine
beside the rotten's boss room and
entering the shrine will take us to
shova the sanctum City upon entering we
are greeted by not only a gorgeous view
of the underground city but also a
dragon with a giant spear through its
chest this dragon is sin long ago a race
of people found sin sleeping in these
caves and because they had most likely
never seen a dragon before they
worshiped him as a God these people
ended up building a city around the
dragon with the rulers of the Kingdom
being the sunken King and his Queen
Alana but something happened a leader by
the name of Sir yorg found the
underground city and mounted a Siege
against its inhabitants with the
intention of slaying the dragon they
were guarding sir yorg and his Knights
believed that killing dragons was a way
to obtain a true understanding of life
so they hunted it down after making a
past all their defenses sir yorg was
face to face with sin himself and that
giant spear in his chest was from him
but clearly sin lived this wound and
that's because upon Awakening from his
Slumber he released a giant cloud of
poison that coated the entire city that
may also explain why the Black Gulch is
covered in this poisonous green liquid
since it's right next to the city but
there's no way to confirm before we
fight sin though we have to fight Alana
so somehow despite the poison and the
attack from Sir yorg she managed to live
well this might be due to her true form
according to her boss soul and weapon we
can piece together that when the abyss
dissipated it was broken into fragments
and eventually these fragments came to
create a life meaning that Elana is the
daughter of Manis the reason the abyss
was broken was that the chosen Undead
defeated Manis back in Dark Souls 1 and
since he was called the father of the
Abyss that would make Alana his daughter
clearly she opposes a threat to more
than just shulva so we need to put her
down after her death is when we gain
access to sin as a final fight wasn't
too bad he has a unique mechanic where
the poison from his breath can break the
durability of your weapon which could
possibly kill the entire run if you're
not careful the only issue is that this
seems to do an insane amount of
durability damage as my Bandit axe with
only 50 durability was destroyed in a
few hits I'm not entirely sure if 50 is
on the low end of durability but going
through all the weapons I picked up
across my whole playthrough they were
all between 40 and 70 so if anything I
should be right in the middle this
wouldn't have been that bad though if
sin didn't act like the guardian dragon
and just stayed put for more than a few
seconds
I think you can see from the gameplay
the amount of chances I have to actually
hit this thing are extremely low I think
what makes shova so engrossing is the
location how do you possibly build a
giant civilization underground and for
what reason that's at least what I was
thinking when going into the DLC and
while I got my answer I wasn't entirely
satisfied with it one reason why is down
to dialogue is there was no NPCs in this
DLC to talk or converse with we can't
gain any new information as all the
people that could have been NPCs are now
just walking corpses given that sin
poisoned the whole city I wonder wonder
if adding one NPC at the very beginning
of the level who's the only survivor of
the attack would have been a better idea
as they could have provided the player
with additional information surrounding
the city such as why they worshiped the
dragon or how they managed to build all
these structures because in its current
state it feels a bit unfinished the
crown of the Old Iron King is our second
DLC and is of course based around the
Old Iron King from the main game this
DLC takes place in one of the largest
Towers he erected called the broom Tower
to find the crown we need to Traverse
the entire tower all the way down to the
bottom which was incred L tedious there
were a lot of traps and enemies that can
be very annoying to deal with but given
that the DLC seemed to want to spike up
the difficulty these additions kind of
made sense this tediousness also added
to the realism of the level as it takes
quite a long time to scale this entire
Tower which is logical given its size
and the tower itself is in just empty
space as all the space is being used for
some sort of purpose whether it's these
smaller guys carrying these giant
barrels or the vast amount of Machinery
within the tower that was made to
produce iron it also fits in well with
the theme of the old iron King's
obsession with iron and how he gained a
lot of power from his production of iron
this DLC however adopts the same
storytelling as the sunken King in that
there are no NPCs to talk to throughout
the entirety of its runtime but what
makes the broom Tower different from
shova is that we already have numerous
levels and items filled with lore about
the Iron King shova was a completely new
area with zero reference to the main
story which is why I enjoyed it a bit
less regarding the NPC interaction than
the broom Tower even though the first
boss is technically another Smelter
Demon the real first boss is actually
the fume Knight I have zero issues
regarding this fight I actually thought
it was perfect I've stated this many
times before but I prefer the fast
combat of the future fromsoft games as
opposed to the slower more methodical
nature of the early Souls games it's not
that one is objectively better than the
other it's just a personal preference of
mine and just like with artorius and
Manis the fum Knight is another boss
that is slowly ramping up the speed of
its attacks they aren't incredibly fast
especially by modern Souls game
standards where a 10-hit combo can be
finished within mere seconds but the fum
Knight is definitely a far more faster
paced fight compared to the rest of the
game and this even continues with the
other boss in this DLC which is selon
it's just like the other boss fights of
this game where you have to look at your
health stamina and both your and the
boss's positioning all at the same time
and then calculate what to do given the
parameters except much faster I
understand this is not everyone's cup of
tea but it's most definitely mine and
even better the fum Knight has actual
ties to a previous character from the
main Game King Vendrick had two trusted
Knights who he considered his left and
right arm one was vat and the other was
the fum Knight however the two clashed
which led to the fum Knight's defeat
what's interesting is that if you defeat
the Royal Aegis purchas his helmet and
then wear it during the fight the fum
Knight will start his second phase
almost immediately showing that he still
has a grudge against him as for the fum
Knight himself he wandered the land in
search of power and eventually came
across the broom Tower and met nadalia
the Bride of Ash nadalia would have been
the queen of the Old Iron King but she
arrived at the keep after he died she
fell into a deep despair because of this
and ended up separating her soul across
the broom tower inside these Ash and
Idols which caused the tower to be
covered in this thick black fog this fog
has the power to control those who wish
to serve her and kill those who refused
when the fumet arrived and instead of
destroying the fog like he could have
done he actually just opted to be
consumed by it which is why he sits at
the bottom of broom Tower defending the
remains of nadalia since she has the
ability to create this black fog and her
soul is colored in darkness it is once
again safe to assume that she is another
daughter of Manis if you're noticing a
theme here then you're catching on to
the point of these DLCs each one of them
is centered around a kingdom that a
daughter of Manis inhabited and this
goes for our final DLC but before we
leave the broom Tower there's a secret
room we can discover with Sur alone's
armor and by using the Ashen Mard we can
go back back in time to when he was
stationed at the tower this leads to the
boss fight we discussed earlier but it's
a memory and if we take what we know
about the memories and apply it here we
can discover even more lore about siron
if we assume that the unknown Warrior
that best of the giant Lord is us since
we went back in time then we're also
responsible for killing siron so that
statement I said earlier about siron
leaving to search for new lands was
possibly a lie as it may have been told
by the Old Iron King so that his
soldiers don't uncover his true fate
which makes things a lot more Sinister
than they seemed our third and final DLC
is the crown of the ivory King the ivory
King was the ruler of the Kingdom Elam
Lo upon entering we can see that it is
covered in snow and given that there
isn't any snow in Dr Lake we must be
pretty far from the original Kingdom as
we approach though we are told to leave
this voice tells us that the old chaos
still hungers and that we are forbidden
from entering clearly we're not going to
listen and charge head first through the
front gate eventually we'll meet with
the first boss of the DLC Ava this is
one of seven pets that the ivory King
kept in his kingdom each one seemed to
have a specific spefic role in the
Kingdom as Ava was tasked with guarding
the king's child of dark this child of
dark is alsana and as you would expect
she is our third daughter of Manis but
her story is a lot less destructive when
alsana was born she felt fear this is
because she was a manifestation of mana'
fears all the daughters of the Abyss are
a manifestation of something nadalia
seemed to be man' despair Elana was
possibly a manifestation of mance's
Wrath and alsana was his fears but when
alsana was born the king managed to find
her and welcomed her into his kingdom he
provided the Comfort she desperately
needed and was kind enough to not shun
her away even after he discovered her
true Origins it's because of this
kindness that she stayed in Elam Lo and
continued to fulfill the ivory King's
wish which was to hold back the old
chaos the old chaos is the flame of
chaos the same one created by the witch
of isth it's unknown when this was
discovered by the ivory King but once he
did find this ancient monstrosity him
and his fellow Knights set out to
extinguish it but they were defeated as
none had come back alsana wants us to
defeat the old chaos so that we can
uphold the mission of the ivory King to
do this though we're going to need some
other Knights of alam L as they are
absolutely necessary if you want the
fight to be possible once we're all set
we can jump down into the old chaos
again just like we did with lost eolith
and this boss is absolute perfection few
fights in the souls games actually get
better with summons and the ivory King
is one of them I felt like I actually
had to apply strategy to an encounter
which was the first time the series has
required me to do that I don't mean
strategy in the sense of reading the
boss's moves and making sure how to
punish and when as that's just baked
into the overall combat of the
encounters but I mean the actual
decision-making I had to employ such as
which enemy to attack and when which was
something I did not expect I would be
doing going into this fight I was
running around finding Knights who were
outnumbered and assisting them or if it
was the opposite side of the spectrum I
would add myself into the mix making the
fight easier this is almost necessary
for the fight as well since you're going
to be doing the most amount of damage
compared to all the other Knights so
your decision in this fight will largely
impact how the second phase will go I'm
not entirely sure if the knights can die
in the first phase given they have an
obscene amount of Health but if they can
it just further as to my point having
two giant teams of warriors fighting
against one another is one of the
greatest things I've ever experienced
and is without a doubt the best fight
this game has to offer from the actual
fight to the layout of the Arena which
is engulfed in the fire from the flame
of chaos it was just all perfect and
would have been such a great way to end
this Trilogy of additional content but
never in my life have I seen a DLC do so
well all throughout the entirety of its
runtime only to Fumble at the Finish
Line The Frigid outskirts is an optional
location that the player can discover
towards the end of the DLC and it is
awful it's not only painstakingly
difficult just from the design alone it
might actually be the worst level in any
Souls game ever made the bonfire before
entering the coffin is the only bonfire
in the area meaning you have to go from
one end of the map to the other just to
get to the boss fight which is just two
more of the ivory King's pets their lore
is thankfully super basic and not
important at all as their job was just
to hunt Exiles that were presumably sent
out of the kingdom and Into The Frigid
outskirts this area would not be nearly
as hard if the horses didn't and keep
spawning every few feet not only wasting
your time but draining your Estus in the
process making the boss fight that much
harder it's just an awful location and I
think the more that I talk about it the
closer I get to going insane so we're
just going to cut it right here as a
complete package the DLCs were pretty
solid there were things in each that I
found a little unpleasant like the
method of Storytelling or an entire area
but there was many things I liked about
the DLCs and due to this confliction I
can't say that together they're perfect
but they're nowhere near close to being
bad it's hard to judge though whether
this was an actual Improvement over
artorius of the Abyss considering that
was one DLC with half the content that
played out over half the time this is
also due to the souls games business
model if people complain about anything
regarding the DLCs of the souls games
it's that they're too short rather than
too long whereas many games like to make
additional content with run times of up
to 6 to 20 hours Dark Souls is pretty
much content with two it never overstays
its welcome in fact it sometimes leaves
too early and doing this gives us less
time to learn about the DLCs and the
locations they reside in but as I said
at the top of the section as a complete
package they were pretty great with all
the crowns in our inventory we can
revisit Vendrick who will now provide us
with some very important dialogue The
Abyss once had form but then
dissipated and yet traces of its
existence
endured each fragment thirsting for
power spread dark with no
relent my dear Shandra was one such
fragment so we now know the fourth and
Final daughter of Manis nandra the queen
of drag lake nandra is a manifestation
of mance's feelings of power and want
she came to this land in order to covet
the first flame this explains why
Vendrick was in the undead crypt
Vendrick left the kingdom because he
discovered n shandra's true Origins and
not only locked himself away in the
Crypt which was guarded by one of his
loyal Knights but he also hid his soul
as Vendrick doesn't drop this upon his
death it's hidden behind a secret door
only accessible to those who are human
and nandra never truly was that's why
she's been so adamant that we succeed
Vendrick she figures that will blindly
follow her order so that we can clear
all the obstacles in her path because
once we finally get to the throne of
want and defeat the knights guarding it
she appears similar to the Ivory King I
found this fight leagues better when the
summons were included mostly due to the
narrative aspect since both benhart and
vengarl were helped due to me so it's
only right that they return the favor
her boss design is impeccable and
continues to uphold the standard that
the Final Bosses of the game have but
not even nandra is the actual final boss
Alia is the actual final boss assuming
you fulfilled a few tasks along the way
which is just meeting him a few times in
specific locations and then specifically
killing Vendrick before Nashandra as a
final boss fight though it felt like a
bit of a let down I think nandra had way
more intensity and narrative weight
behind her Aldi has been this ominous
figure that just shows up says a bunch
of and then leaves and now all of a
sudden I'm supposed to care that we're
fighting him I get why he's fighting us
he's supposed to test our might to see
if we're truly going to be the next
Monarch of the Throne of want but that
doesn't make it right the same could be
said for nandra given she makes an
appearance a whole two times in this
game but that seemed to be intentional
as the reveal of nandra was supposed to
be this mysterious event which makes
this next part even more confusing as
the Emerald Herald can literally spoil
for us that Nashandra will be coming for
us I completely miss her on the way down
so I never got to hear this which
ultimately made the impact of this cut
scene hit harder which begs the question
of why it was mentioned in the first
place I find it hard to believe that
many people Miss nandra at the top of
the castle so they're well aware of who
she is so just keep the mystery hidden
until the final moments it kills the
entire impact of the scene if we're just
told right before entering that she's
going to fight us after the defeat of
the three bosses we can select our
ending and while this game does have two
endings what these endings represent is
rather interesting our first ending is
entering the Throne of want this is sort
of like the Kil of the first flame just
a little bit different it allows us to
choose the fate of the world but we
never get to see our choice it is both
the age of fire and the age of dark
ending together it's never known what
our character chooses but that's the
part of the role play when it comes to
RPGs we make up the rest of the story
did our character choose fire did they
choose dark or did they do something
else and that's something else is
following in the footsteps of Vendrick
and Alia we leave the throne and search
for an answer to the undead curse we
don't know if we'll succeed but it's
worth a try anyway doing this is sort of
like operating a dig site yeah Vendrick
and Alia spent decades digging trying to
find a solution and failed but now
thanks to them we know of a decades
worth of methods that won't work
bringing us closer and closer to finding
a cure for the curse and that's the
beauty of the second ending it's not
only in perfect sync with the rest of
the game as it continues to make the
curse the main plot of the story but it
gives us an option that we as players
hadn't really considered up until this
point Dark Souls one did a phenomenal
job of grooming us into believing that
there were only two choices but Dark
Souls I refuted this claim and as a
third as a final note Dark Souls I was a
brilliant game I went into this game
with mild expectations but was blown
away by how impressive the story was and
how surprisingly easy it was to grasp
many questions are still left unanswered
and will never be answered but I left
this game with an understanding of its
story its themes and what emotions it
had intended to invoke in me and that is
incredibly admirable well the world of
Dark Souls isn't over the fire of the
world will fade once more and yet
despite the impending doom of the age of
dark getting closer and closer no one
seems to care but we'll talk about that
in Dark Souls
3 Dark Souls 3 is a perfect game due to
the way a book ends the entire series
but the only reason that I can say that
is because of how much this game is
being held up by its predecessors Dark
Souls II on its own is still a good game
but without all the effort put into the
story from Dark Souls 1 and 2 its
narrative wouldn't be as impactful
that's the beauty of the Dark Souls
Trilogy it's one of the few series out
there that truly feels like a tightly
niit game many games get sequels but not
many truly feel like a proper sequel
just a game set in the same universe a
year or so after the previous game it
might make callbacks to the Past game
but not enough to feel like what
occurred in that game was important the
Dark Souls Trilogy and its repetitive
ideas make the games feel properly
connected the age of fire the undead
curse hollowing and so much more have
been a prominent part of the series
since its Inception which is why judging
these games individually based on their
stories is so difficult as each of these
games relies on each other to actually
make their story have an impact Dark
Souls 2 and 3 could not exist without
Dark Souls 1 and not just because of its
World building and important characters
but because it's the game that showed us
what the age of fire is and why it's
important we then took this information
into Dark Souls 2 which showed us how
the age of fire is not all its cooped up
to be and how as all the years go by
people are starting to embrace the fire
less and less this all comes to an end
at Dark Souls I a game that is purely
focused on the age of dark and why the
first flame needs to go each one of
these games provides a crucial step in
our journey and without even one of them
every other game loses its meaning we
already talked about the previous two
games and what they attempt to show to
the player and all these themes ideas
and plots all converge towards Dark
Souls 3 creating one of the best endings
in a series I've ever seen and today I
will explain why so that wasting any
more time let's get started so
ironically for a game that's going to be
about the age of darkness and how much
death and Decay the current age has
caused it starts off with an incredibly
intense soundtrack it's not even been 10
seconds and this electrified feeling of
exhilaration seeps into your body Dark
Souls is back and it's time to kick some
ass this feeling continues right into
the intro cinematic and Dark Souls 3
weighs zero time getting into the story
this is the first time in the trilogy
with the game outright tells you who the
main bosses are which are the abyss
Watchers aldred saint of the deep and
yor the giant there is also a fourth
that isn't mentioned but we'll discuss
them a bit later just like before it's
four beings who will need to be dealt
with in order to succeed but instead of
them being the four Lord Soul users or
the four great ones it's the four Lords
of Cinder the question is why are they
so important well oddly enough the game
tells you but the pure spectacle of the
intro is so hypnotizing you might not
even realize what was just said
according to the opening narration the
bells only toll when threatened the
reason they're being threatened is
because the fire is fading again but
furthermore it's because someone doesn't
want to link the flame that person being
Prince lothric since the prince doesn't
want to link the flame the bells of
Awakening revived previous Lords of
Cinder from past Kingdom each of these
aformentioned beings I mentioned earlier
were people who linked the flame in
their lifetimes the bells assume that if
they've linked it already then they'll
do it again but they all refused the
abyss Watchers Aldrich and yor don't
want to in a last Stitch effort to make
sure the fire is linked the bells of
Awakening have awoken other beings who
are unkindled people who have failed to
link the fire in the past but are now
given a second chance and we are one
such person known as the Ashen one our
job is to defeat the Lords of Cinder and
take their Ashes to their Thrones is if
they won't come back willingly then
their ashes will serve as a sub
Institute this is the plot of the game
no small objective in between like
finding Vendrick or ringing the bells
right away from the get-go we tasked
with killing these beings and licking
the flame assuming you've played the
previous games already then you've heard
this story twice before and already know
what you're getting into which is why
our first boss isn't even 5 minutes into
the game in Dark Souls 1 it took around
the same time to fight the Asylum Demon
but the game also taught us about our
inventory and weaponry but also showed
us that we can converse with NPCs and
used an Estus flask Dark Souls 2 took a
bit longer with this as the first boss
wasn't for a couple hours and the basic
tutorial can take a bit of time to run
through in Dark Souls 3 we start with
the Estus flask get all our gear and
start our journey immediately there is
no handholding here as the game assumes
you've done this all before and don't
need much of a refresher the reason why
they put udx in here is because he's
supposed to test our strength not just
the Ashen one strength but our since
Dark Souls III underwent some drastic
changes in regards to its combat and for
those who have noticed yes I'm using an
axe again it wasn't until starting this
game that I realized I had used an axe
for all three of them so I figured it'd
be quite comical if I beat the entire
Trilogy with the same weapon before
killing udx though we'll see him become
engulfed in this black form this is
called the pus of man this is a unique
disease that is taking over the kingdom
and it originates from the abyss similar
to how mana's humanity went wild causing
him to become the Ferocious Beast that
we know in game it's possible that this
is happening to other Hollows but on a
much grander scale is this won't be the
last time we see this puss of man in the
game after udx we can take the coiled
sword from his body and use it to create
the bonfire at the new Firelink Shrine I
absolutely love the design of Firelink
Shrine but the moment you walk in and
see all the Thrones lined up around the
bonfire you feel a sense of comfort it's
definitely my favorite across the entire
series but I lo its location Firelink
Shrine feels so disconnected from the
rest of the world even though majula was
on the outskirts of drag Lake Castle it
at least became a Nexus for all the
various paths that the player could
Traverse to the cherry on top here is
that we can't even travel to the first
location were forced to teleport to it
it just further shuts this place away
from the rest of the Kingdom there's no
incentive to explore the other areas of
the level is we've already seen
everything it has I never understood why
the series slowly moved towards this
idea but it seemed to be a massive hit
amongst the team as this would be used
in other games going forward from a pure
gameplay perspective the Firelink Shrine
of Dark Souls II also reverts the
changes in Dark Souls 2 to keep things
more simplistic Andre is back and will
handle anything regarding our weapons
from upgrades to infusions and the
shrine handmade becomes our
all-encompassing Merchant so no more
clutter like in Dark Souls 2 we also
have our new level up lady who is just
the fire keeper she doesn't have any
unique backstory like the emerald Herald
but her condition does spark a few
questions it seems that all the fire
keepers have some sort of condition that
afflicts them Anastasia the lady under
Firelink Shrine will initially be mute
and cannot be spoken to the Dark Moon
ntis in an Orlando has a disfigured
appearance which is why she hides it
from us with her armor and this fir
keeper is blind this has always been
fascinating to me as I've never been
able to fully understand why this is the
case it's possible that this is a sort
of right of passage and the fire keepers
are showing their willingness to The
Flame by giving up something but what
they lose seems to differ across the
games it's possible that this is just a
coincidence but there's also an NPC in
the game will meet called enina who
tries to be a firek keeper and is also
blind FireKeepers being blind only
occurs in Dark Souls I so I've always
wondered why blindness is occurring now
instead of across the series it's
something we never get an answer to but
definitely a fascinating topic to
discuss speaking of the characters in
Firelink Shrine I want to talk about the
NPCs though before we embark on our
journey Third times the charm as they
say since the NPCs of this game are
handled way better than in the previous
two titles my issue with each game is
that Dark Souls 1 kept replaying the
same fate of hollowing across all of its
characters which started losing its
value very quickly and Dark Souls 2
seemed to just make characters for their
rewards rather than their stories but
Dark Souls II seems to fix this issue
the quantity of the NPCs has been
drastically reduced as they're only
around 27 or so in the main game there's
also very little overlap in the
merchants as each School of magic has
one designated NPC with the exception of
pyromancy and while grey rat does have a
pretty useless inventory for the most
part since he's a thief you can actually
send him to find gear which will
increase his options this was so much
better as I didn't have to run around
the base finding the one Merchant who
sells the item I need furthermore the
actual quests of the NPCs were much more
enjoyable this time around there was
five standout characters for Dark Souls
I but one interesting change with this
game though is that the NPCs connect
with the main content both seart and HRI
have a connection with a specific Lord
of Cinder and yuria's quest line ends up
becoming one of the endings of the game
I really liked this idea as so far the
NPCs have been separate from the main
bosses so it was nice to see it all
inter twine with one another it'll be a
lot easier to explain what their quest
lines are alongside the main content so
we'll hold off on this for now which
means the only other two that we have to
talk about that have a more traditional
quest line are enina and Cirrus as we
talked about before enina is blind and
this is because she came from her land
of kareim to become a firekeeper you
might recognize the name Kareem as
Oswald the Trek and The Marvelous
Chester from Dark Souls 1 are all from
Kareem the reason we find Irina here in
this cell is because she's failed and
hasn't become a firek keeper yet due to
this failure she believed that she was
unfit to tend the flames and fell into a
deep depression the Knight guarding her
is Aon of kareim and has a sworn duty to
protect her no matter her state of being
to progress her quest line we need to
buy her spells if we buy her Miracles
then we'll be able to give her the
enlightenment she needed and we'll
eventually become a firekeeper at
Firelink Shrine gameplay wise she's
pretty useless in this state is not only
is there already a fire keeper but she's
also hundreds of feet away from the
player as opposed to the actual fir
keeper who is right next to you if we
however only by her dark Miracles we
further progress the ferocity of the
humanity with inside of her causing her
to be consumed by its dark power this
turns aegon hostile who will fight you
for betraying her she will eventually
start to become worried and asks us to
touch her again so that she can tell who
is nearby but eventually she will not
recognize our touch and ask to be killed
it's a genuinely sad outcome and this
emotion is heightened further because
we're the ones that caused it head we
instead just kept purchasing her regular
Miracles we could have saved her from
her impending fate it's a quest line of
two extremes one where she gets
everything she wants and one where she
loses everything and it all depends on
you as for sir she starts out as some
random person who appears at Firelink
Shrine sir seems to be a dark moon blade
since she uses the Dark Moon blade spell
which can only be acquired by those a
part of the Covenant but yorka the
leader of said Covenant states that
we'll be the only Knight in the group if
we join furthermore C says that she is a
former servant of the Divinity which may
imply that she was a dark moon blade but
left some time later as for why she left
it seems to be related to the two people
we fight against throughout her quest
line who are kraton and hodrick kraton
is the same one from Dark Souls 2
although this does not imply that he was
the Canon winner between him and Pate as
this was probably thousands of of years
ago and I'm assuming that kraton is also
unkindled as he most likely was revived
alongside us sirra says that kraton was
a part of the Rosaria fingers a rival
Covenant and one that she despises and
hodrick seems to be her grandfather the
reason we know this is because she calls
out to him before the fight and when
defeated she says that she's pleased
that her Granddad can rest in peace
hodrick seems to have gone mad at some
point and Sirius wanted to put him out
of his misery she has a short but sweet
quest line and the family connection to
hodrick was quite the shock the question
Still Remains though what is the Sun
Realms because her full name is Cirrus
of the sunless Realms it's nice to
speculate about it but there isn't much
information to go off of and this is a
running Trend throughout the series and
personally something I'm not a fan of
there are so many locations in the game
that we learn about like aora kareim
Katarina mea Alin Ven and so many more
but there's no in-depth lore about them
hell most of them don't even give us a
surface level idea of what they're about
this is not a Dark Souls three issue and
more of a series issue as the devs have
been given three chances to develop some
of these places and from software has
just refused to do so many people
including myself have tried to speculate
on more details regarding these kingdoms
but there's so little to go off of that
it's not even worth it their inclusion
in the game was probably because the
team wanted to add a bit of flavor to
the world to not only show that the main
Kingdom isn't the only Kingdom in the
Dark Souls universe but also that people
from all over are flocking to this
Kingdom in search of something important
it just feels like a wasted opportunity
to barely mention these places after
three whole games as a whole Dark Souls
II has some great quest lines and I
would go as far to say that it's the
most polished out of the entire series
Dark Souls 3 recognized what was wrong
with the previous two entries and made
sure not to repeat those same mistakes
again with the NPC's done we can now
resume our objective which as a reminder
is to defeat the Lords of Cinder and use
their ashes as kindling so that we may
travel to the Kil of the first flame and
relink the fire to do this though we
actually need five Lords of Cinder The
Abyss Watchers yorm Prince lothric
Aldridge and ludleth the reason I said
four earlier is because lli is actually
the only one who complies with the rules
as he's already at Firelink Shrine When
we arrive lless Throne says that he was
EX ex from his homeland the reason why
he was exiled was because of his art of
transposition for gameplay purposes this
allows us to take the boss souls and
make weapons out of them just like the
past games what's odd though is that
when he dies he drops the skull ring
which talks about a being called The
Soul feeder and how it was this
insatiable Beast that hungered for Souls
due to the ambiguity of his past it's
led to many theories such as lth being a
soul feeder himself but was at one point
defeated which is why he has no legs and
possibly can fit on his throne it is
also entirely possible that lth is just
someone who wants to do the right thing
and has no ill intentions but the skull
ring definitely leaves a lot up to the
imagination to get to the other four
Lords we'll need to use the bonfire at
Firelink Shrine which will take us to
the high wall of lothric and it is
absolutely stunning you're immediately
greeted with an entire view of the
castle and it's a breathtaking view but
it's also an illusion the kingdom of
lothric is riddled with corpses and
those who survived either became Hollows
or are still seen defending a lifeless
kingdom lothric is governed by the three
pillars of rule the knights who protect
the kingdom the scholars who run the
grand archives and the high priestess
who also served as Prince loth's wet
Nerfs those who abide by these rules are
the Loth Knights but these Wing Knight
variants are said to be Heretics as they
don't accept their rules this is because
of Gertrude the Heavenly daughter in the
grand archives we can find a bird cage
cell with a dead body in it this is
assumed to be Gertrude she was one of
the Queen's holy maidens although
depending on some item descriptions she
may also have been her daughter one day
gertude was visited by an Angel and
through this was able to establish the
Angelic faith of lothar seeing as this
isn't a part of the regular three
pillars gertude was taken and imprisoned
those who agreed with her teachings
though baned together to defeat the
current rulers of lothric which led to a
massive Civil War out of all the Three
Kingdoms we visited so far in the
trilogy the kingdom of lothric is easily
in the worst state this condition that
we see the castle in may also symbolize
the world of Dark Souls itself I'll
elaborate more on this idea later but
it's my personal theory that not only
did our characters from Dark Souls 1 and
2 Link the flame but every person in
between these games did so as well if we
go back to the intro the narrator says
that loar is really transitory lands of
the Lords converge meaning this isn't
like the past games in Dark Souls 1 all
the main bosses were within Lord already
but in Dark Souls 3 the lands of these
Lords have been forced together it's
unclear how this is even possible but it
may go back to the first Flame the world
of Dark Souls is dying it's a shadow of
its former self places are being buried
destroyed and created in an endless loop
the intro does a great job of showing
this but the one area that truly opened
my eyes to this was drag Heap this place
is covered in rubble and buildings that
span so far and wide that you can't even
tell what the buildings used to be or
when they were built we talked about how
time was convoluted in Dark Souls 1 but
in Dark Souls 3 this has been progressed
even further lands are being moved
together creating a tidal wave of rubble
and it's all because the first flame if
you watched the past videos you may have
noticed how worse things have gotten
throughout the series and I believe this
is because the first flame hasn't been
snuffed out people are still clinging on
to that illusion of life as Alia put it
and are willing to stay in the comfort
of what they know rather than step out
into the unknown and because of that the
world has gotten even worse each Dark
Souls game has tried to push the player
toward one specific idea the age of fire
in one the breaking of the curse in two
and the age of dark in three everyone in
Dark Souls 3 is just doing what they can
continue to do because it's all they
know some are blindly following their
faith and others are continuing to work
on their craft this game truly conveys
the attitude and the effects of a Dying
World one that is practically begging to
be put out of its misery it's basically
saying look at all of this in game look
at the destruction of the kingdoms the
ruins of the world and the people who
inhabit it do you think any of them are
truly happy to be alive right now not
even the Lords of Cinder beings who have
insurmountable power don't even want to
link the flame it lays all of this out
for you and asks you to choose which is
quite a heavy burden choosing to go
against the status quot that has been
said for who knows how long is a very
hard decision but at least we don't have
to make that choice now is the game will
blindsight us again and create another
boss encounter for us to be hypnotized
by we'll talk about vort later though as
he does have ties to another boss later
in the game after vort will be taken to
the undead settlement this place
functions like the undead Berg in Dark
Souls 1 as this place was the residence
of many of the kingdoms Undead but one
thing we'll see immediately upon entry
is this massive pile of corpses at the
end of the bridge these beings are
pilgrims that are most likely from the
kingdom of londor as the only Survivor
is y go of londor he is related to Uria
however so we will have to discuss him a
bit later as we explore the undead
settlement we can see that this place is
in just as bad of shape as Loth Castle
bodies are piled up everywhere and some
have even been put into cages this land
has also been subjected to various
curses and because of this many of the
settlements inhabitants sealed them away
in a spe tree but would end up cursing
the tree itself which would lead to the
creation of the cursed rotted Greatwood
during the second phase the Greatwood
will slam into the ground and will
discover the true resting place of all
the settlement's hollows in the apply
named pit of Hollows it's unclear though
whether or not the hollows that were
dumped here were alive or not upon
arrival but since the mound Maker's
Covenant is down here it's possible that
they were thrown in here alive and all
fought to the death which would explain
the plethora of Bones covering the walls
but it could also be that these people
actually banded together to create the
mound Maker's Covenant regardless it's
clear that their Fates were sealed the
moment they were thrown in while the
curs at Greatwood is to the left of the
dilapidated bridge if we instead go to
the right we'll make it to the road of
sacrifices and subsequently fairing keep
which leads us to our first Lord of
Cinder The Abyss Watchers fairen is
rather interesting is not only is it the
resting place for the abyss Watchers but
it may also be the ruins of ulil in this
area we can find the golden scroll and
the dusk Crown items that have ties to
ully seal and we can also find dead
mushrooms and maybe even the final
resting place of Elizabeth if this
taller mushroom is assumed to be her
this would also fit narratively with the
abyss Watchers as they were a part of an
organization dedicated to fighting the
abyss and seeing his Manis was located
under ulil this would tie together quite
nicely the abyss Watchers were the main
fighting force of a group called The
Undead Legion of fen who took inspir
aration from artorius and dedicated
their lives to fighting the abyss but
their group num seem to be much larger
than they seem as these monstrous beings
are seen guarding the abyss Watchers
Boss Arena they even managed to recruit
one of the twin Crystal sages that is
said to have betrayed his scholarly
Friends of the grand archives to Ally
with the undead Legion as for the abyss
Watchers themselves it said that they
all Shar the blood of the wolf most
likely in reference to this wolf found
in the area and used its blood to
increase their power and their power was
unmatched is not only were they able to
hunt together like a pack of wolves but
they've been known to bury an entire
Kingdom at the slight a sign of the
Abyss this group would eventually link
the flame presumably an attempt to Cast
Away the abyss for good but with their
main Force gone the rest of the forces
dwindled and left the undead Legion as
there was nothing else to do but as we
know the abyss can't be destroyed that
easily it eventually came back and went
unchecked since none of the Legion were
around and managed to turn their land
into a festering swamp these
monstrosities that we see may have been
Legion soldiers who were corrupted by
the abyss when the abyss Watchers awoke
they came to the realization that their
home was overrun and their mission was
unsuccessful and while it's not stated
when this happened at some point some of
the members became tainted with the
abyss itself which leads to the cut
scene before the boss fight where
they're all fighting one another as
they're trying to fight back against the
abyss but since they're all Undead
they're constantly being revived so
they're stuck in this NeverEnding battle
between each other which is likely why
they won't link the flame doing it the
first time didn't stop the abyss and
they have more important things to do
than sit on their throne and let the
abyss consume the world I absolutely
love the abyss Watchers and not just
from a lore perspective but also as a
boss what really sold the fight for me
was the hints of artorius that were
spread throughout their move sets the
undead Legion took took inspiration from
artorius so it's only right that they
mimic his fighting style and the
fast-paced leaping attacks that they
have really reminded me of that fight
furthermore this fight's quality
increases tfold once the other members
join in as it turns this honorable duel
into this chaotic mess you lose all
Focus during this fight as you're having
to keep track of three different Abyss
Watchers who can slide across the arena
in a second and the second phase is just
as deadly as the last dead Abyss Watcher
consumes the blood of all his brethren
in a last ditch attempt to stop us he's
a lot faster than last time and produces
Flames from his sword which makes the
fight even harder it shows how dedicated
the group is to their mission and how
they'll use anything they can as long as
they win similar to how artorius fought
us with all his strength and even a
broken arm from both a presentation and
gameplay perspective the abyss Watchers
are fantastic Lords of Cinder and the
best way to introduce the player to the
sheer power these Lords hold behind the
abyss Watchers is the catacombs of carus
a place that has seemingly no actual
Kingdom as this carus is never seen in
game but given that wnir is located down
here and is known to be a lord consumed
by the abyss maybe the abyss Watchers
leveled the entire Kingdom and while
that is an inter idea to think about
what's more important is actually what's
underneath the catacombs if we break
this bridge and use it as a ladder we
can enter the smoldering Lake the
original location of lost isth and
possibly Ash Lake in here we can see
giant structures that look very similar
to Arch trees of Ash Lake and given the
geography of lordran Ash Lake and lost
isth weren't too far from one another so
it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that
they can exist in the same location if
we continue deeper into the lake we'll
see dozens of dead demons that resemble
the Capra Taurus and stray demon from
Dark Souls 1 it's very clear that the
demon race is dying and that they're
struggling to survive we can even see
this in the stray demon near fair and
keep which is covered in stone rather
than the flesh and blood that we're used
to there's even The Old Demon King whose
Bostrom is covered in the corpses of his
fellow demons he'll try his best to
fight the ashim one with all his might
but most of his power ran out years ago
and as a last resort will release all
his flames in a fiery explosion but in
doing so he'll lose all the power he's
ever consumed and will be unable to
fight the Demons of Dark Souls 3 are a
dying race and further adds to the theme
of death and Decay the game is trying to
convey kingdoms aren't lavish spectacles
of beautiful architecture they a war
zone and the demon race is no longer a
formidable foe just a dying breed that
won't last another generation the
symbolism of this place is beautiful as
it shows that everyone is being affected
by the progression of time and no one is
gaining from having this age continue
but not everything needs to have a sad
ending as if we explore the rest of the
smoldering Lake we can find the corpses
of a spider and a woman and judging from
the tone that is located on her body it
seems that quana found the fair lady and
got to spend their last moments with one
another it's a wonderful and happy
ending quana got to find her sister who
she thought was dead and the lady is
finally able to die and no longer has to
suffer anymore getting back on track to
get to our next Lord of Cinder we need
to find iril but to gain entry we need
to find a specific item that is located
in the Cathedral of the deep the resting
place of Aldridge saint of the deep
Aldridge's story is by far the most
vague but also the most detailed amongst
the Lords of Cinder as his story
encompasses various other bosses that
we've already had the pleasure of
meeting years ago Aldridge was a common
cleric but he would eventually start
experiencing visions of a deep sea this
deep sea was another form of the abyss
and it was located in the lowest
possible depths imaginable and form the
core components of the world we never
get to see the deep sea in game but it
seems to be the lowest layer something
only aldrid can see he then shared this
info with only those he trusted who were
his arch deacons McDonald Royce and
Clint they not only kept this
information within their Inner Circle
but also encouraged one of aldrich's
insatiable urges whether this was
something he always had within him or it
came about when he saw visions of the
deep Aldrich had an insatiable urge to
consume human flesh the arch Deans
encouraged this behavior and used their
influence to create an army of followers
to not only worship Aldrich but also
went out and gathered sacrifices for him
that's why these evangelists are located
in the undead settlement as they are
trying to bring the undead to the
cathedral so that they may be consumed
by Aldrich we also learned that he would
eat anyone even including children as
HRI and Horus are said to be the only
two children who managed to escape
Aldridge's grasp where HRI and Horus are
located happens to be the road of
sacrifices the path that the settlers
and evangelists took to get to the
cathedral before consumption this
Cathedral performed all manner of
rituals and cleansings in order to
purify those who entered its doors after
numerous sacrifices the people around
Aldrich managed to go insane and even
though Aldrich himself was able to keep
his sanity his form would change rapidly
as he would eventually become the black
sludge that we see in the intro due to
his immense power he was used as a lord
of Cinder but seeing as Aldrich was
fully consumed by the visions of a deep
sea linking the fire would be the
opposite of what he had planned so this
implies that it was linked against his
will they would eventually return Al's
Body to the cathedral to be placed
inside the large coffin scene in the
deacons of the deep boss fight these
deacons were led by the archdeacons we
discussed earlier but while Aldrich was
laying in his coffin another piece was
added to the board pontiff Sullivan was
a former resident of the painted world
of arandel just like the world of Dark
Souls the painted worlds have their own
cycles that need to be rekindled in a
sense well the pontiff lived in the
current painted world of arendel but
felt no reason to continue his life here
as he had not experienced any hardship
or despair we'll learn about the
paintings residents in the DLC but
unlike the painted world of Aramis which
was a world for all the things the gods
feared arandel was for those who had no
else to go and are without purpose
Sullivan would then set out in search of
a purpose and would eventually come
across to ithel this place is very
relevant to the story as right next to
it is Anna Orlando the same one from
Dark Souls 1 from various item
descriptions we learn that gwindel
didn't actually die in Dark Souls 1 as
he is still very much alive in this game
now whether or not the chosen Undead
never fought him or they killed him but
he somehow revived himself is unknown
and ultimately irrelevant but with
gwindel being the only God left in an
Orlando he tried to reach out to those
in his extended family in hopes of
trying to rebuild the God's rule the
only one he managed to find though was
yoska a crossbreed girl similar to
Priscilla it's unclear what her
relationship with gwindel was or even
her relationship with Priscilla was but
all we know is that she was content with
helping gwindel in his objective gwindel
would also reinstate the Dark Moon
blades as a way to help protect them
from any adversaries one of their
Knights though happened to be pontiff
Sullivan who infiltrated its ranks and
managed to corrupt all the members he
came across he would then end up
enacting his plan when gwindel was
stricken with an illness that left him
unable to care for his Covenant or city
solivan in one successful swoop managed
to imprison yoska in a nearby Tower and
throw gwindel inside an Orlando
Cathedral allowing him to have complete
control of iel which is how he earned
the title of pontiff in order to ensure
protection of his new kingdom the
pontiff would not only set athl knights
in various positions as guards create a
barrier over the whole city so that no
one could enter but also send outrider
Knights to conquer other lands we've
already seen a few outrider Knights
across the game already but the two most
notable Knights are vort and the dancer
of the boreo Valley now much is known
about about the duo except the fact that
the dancer was a daughter from one of
the royal families in iril whether she
served willingly or not is unknown
either way both of their Fates would end
up the same as they were both bestowed a
ring given by the pontiff which would
end up slowly turning them into these
malform beasts after an unknown amount
of time Aldrich would reawake again as a
lord of Cinder and would foresee the
world's eventual destruction at the
hands of the deep sea due to this
premonition though he would neglect the
throne and wait for the Deep to overcome
the world and it was during this waiting
that he would dream of the old gods and
how they wanted to relink the flame he
saw this as a ploy against his own
wishes and sought to Devour the very
Gods he then traveled to iril decimated
the knights guarding the city and forced
the pontiff to surrender who gave up
control of an Orlando allowing Aldridge
to have an audience with gwindel what
happened next is what we see during the
boss fight we interrupt Aldrich midc
consumption who now has to use the
barely conscious body of gwindel as a
weapon to defeat us Aldrich seems to
have very Supernatural Powers as his
soul when transposed can give us the
Dark Moon Longbow which belonged to
gwindel but also the life hunt scythe
that belonged to Priscilla but
interestingly though he never consumed
Priscilla only dreamed of her from what
I can gather it seems that Aldridge can
acquire abilities from those he consumed
and is also able to peer into that
person's Memories the reason he was able
to acquire the life Hunt sighte is
because it's a miracle miracles in Dark
Souls are like stories you're
essentially reciting a story and using
the Talisman as a medium for the power
so aldrid consumed gwindel and dreamt of
Priscilla during the consumption and
then learned the story of the life hunt
scythe and was able to cast it since
it's basically just the equivalent of a
story again earlier I said Aldrich had
the most detailed story out of the Lords
of Cinder and I wasn't lying his story
doesn't just include himself but five
other bosses and close to a dozen named
characters it is a very long story to
wrap your head around but it is the kind
of Storytelling that got me interested
in these games in the first place it
showcases all the different events from
different points of view and how these
characters fit into one cohesive
timeline but just as the story is
detailed so too is it vague the Deep
sits on a shelf alongside many of the
concepts of the Dark Souls universe that
are barely touched upon in its defense
though the deep does have a lot of item
descriptions tied to it so we can at
least get a better understanding of what
its true nature is but seeing as it's
never shown to us in game or ever
elaborated on further than what we
talked about it just becomes another
idea in the world of Dark Souls that
leaves a lot open to the interpretation
as for the boss fight Aldrich was pretty
entertaining but I think a much better
boss fight in my opinion was ponti
Sullivan I've always liked Sullivan's
design and plus the walk towards him is
always very ominous as you don't know
what to expect especially when he dashes
right at you the moment you get too
close fort and the dancer were pretty
much on the same level as Aldrich in my
opinion I still think pontiff ranks
higher than all of them but they were
really entertaining fights and honestly
this opinion I have is pretty much the
same for most of the bosses in this game
even udx was an entertaining fight and
he was the first boss we ever face it's
clear that the quality of the bosses has
been raised thanks to Dark Souls 3i and
I think one reason for this was because
the team reverted the previous ideas of
Dark Souls 2 and instead focused on the
quality again rather than the quantity
each fight brought some sort of unique
twist so that it never felt like you
were in some traditional fight is that's
what the enemies were for even fights I
dislike due to their lack of difficulty
like the deacons are still at least
mildly impressive as its leagues better
than the congregation from Dark Souls 2
which I'm assuming was the inspiration
for it those enemies between the bosses
are allowed to have basic attacks and a
combo or two but the bosses are where
all the creative Talent is supposed to
be spilled into it felt like there was
real passion Behind These bosses again
from their designs to their move sets
and that's one of the reasons Dark Souls
II is held in such a high regard within
the franchise the other reason may also
be down to the locations themselves
there is Beauty in destruction as they
say and Dark Souls 3 proves time and
time again how this is possible the
catacombs the cathedral and the
smoldering Lake are all great examples
of this but the way the game shifts this
idea and it said showcases Beauty
through architecture again through the
lens of things like iril and an Orlando
is genius even the smallest things like
looking over a ledge and seeing the rest
of the Kingdom or just walking through
the hallway that leads to Gwynn's tomb
are beautiful not only because we get to
see some of these locations in a new
more updated light but because from
software has always expertly crafted its
levels to showcase these moments for us
that's one of the reasons an Orlando was
so beloved amongst the community Is Not
only was it the first area that showed
actual Signs of Life in the world of
lram but its design was a sight to
behold even in Orlando in its current
state still holds that beauty it's just
a different kind of beauty not how
various pieces of architecture can
create a Godlike City that people can
only dream of but how despite its
destruction and loss of life and Orlando
still manages to be a beacon of light
and upholds the massive significance
that it displayed in Dark Souls 1 after
the defeat of Aldrich if we retrace our
steps back to iro we can find a separate
path that leads to the profane Capital
ruled by yorum the giant interestingly
though we don't just arrive in the
capital as upon exiting through this
hole in the wall we arrive in the ithil
dungeon this place is a massive and
convoluted prison filled with all manner
of beings who have been imprisoned and
tortured and abused by all the jailers
these jailers are said to hail from the
profane Capital but later served under
the rule of pontiff Sullivan they're
also very ruthless in their methods when
it comes to subduing escape bees as they
have a poisonous Mist that saure
HealthWay and use a scolding p piece of
hot iron that not only Burns at the
touch but will hinder your ability to
run away as you temporarily fat roll
when Afflicted if you manage to escape
the prison you'll be greeted by the
underground city of the profane capital
from a pure spectacle or design
perspective I think shova had a much
better greeting upon its entry but the
profane capital is still nice to look at
it is admittedly quite small this could
once again be due to the geological
shift of the lands towards lothric but
that doesn't ignore the fact that the
devs could have done a bit more with its
design you'll likely spend more time in
the adjacent dungeon than in the actual
actual Capital while the area does lack
in length it does try to circumvent the
issue a bit by adding a bit more depth
the capital is covered in various
trinkets goblets and burned corpses and
these bodies don't just stop at the
entrance they are in every section of
the capital it's trying to get the
player to wonder what exactly happened
here well the capital was under attack
by a new flame called The profaned Flame
this was a curse created by a group of
women and while they did become
disfigured and turned into these
creatures we see just outside the
capital they did manage to win in the
end as it pretty much killed every
single person who resided in said
Capital but this is where yorm came in
as he attempted to stop this profane
flame before it caused any damage by
linking the flame and becoming a lord of
Cinder but it didn't work as the
aformentioned destruction followed
shortly after the main question
surrounding it though is why did these
women create such a thing and how well
it's possible that it may have ties to
the abyss as both Carla the witch and
the profane Cole who are both found in
the ithal dungeon have ties to the abyss
you're here to save
me but I'm guilty
a wretched child of the
Abyss
Lords where did you happen upon this
coal this is much too dark I see the
abyss in it furthermore we need to look
at the pontiff and elanora pontiff
carries a sword called the profaned
Great swword which stat that Sullivan
discovered an unfading flame below the
tundra of iiil in the axe elenora can be
dropped from these monstrous creatures
which says that the women who triggered
the curse were relatives of a certain
Oracle these words Tundra iril a land
covered in snow and Oracle all point to
Alam Lo and alsana being this Oracle
from what we just talked about regarding
the smoldering Lake and what we know
from the old chaos in aam Lo it's clear
that the flame of chaos is dying so
maybe this is an altered version of the
flame of chaos or at least maybe the
last few Sparks of it it's definitely a
stretch but the profane flame has always
been interesting to me as the last time
a new flame was mentioned in the series
well we kind of know how that went upon
his Revival though yor the state of his
City and was in utter shock at what had
occurred so now he sits in despair
unwilling to link the flame but despite
how depressing it would be to kill him
we not only need his ashes but a friend
also needs to uphold his
promise
y old
friend hi secret of the Knights of
Katarina have come to uphold my
promise let the sun shine upon this Lord
of
Cinder when y became the ruler of his
kingdom many of the people disapproved
of him in an effort to gain their trust
he created two weapons called the storm
rulers and gave one to his people should
he ever step out of line and the other
to his best friend Seward who promised
to kill him should he come back to life
this is also the final step step in
Secret's quest line it was the main
reason I enjoyed it so much as being
able to fight alongside an NPC such as
him against a giant sounds like a blast
but despite the wonderful presentation
and design of y's character it's easily
the most underwhelming fight in the game
using the storm ruler is the only way to
do real damage to your arm the main
attack of the storm ruler is the weapon
art that produces a slash of wind
capable of Downing him but that's just
it it's just the same move over and over
again doing this alone is easy and with
seag it becomes even easier as you can
will stun lock yor for a large portion
of the battle and for this to occur
during a fight with a lord of Cinder is
pretty pathetic on top of this y's
second phase doesn't really change
anything it just adds a bit of fire to
his weapon I feel like there was much
more potential for yor but it was never
given to us thankfully this wouldn't be
the last time this idea would exist in a
Souls game as Elder ring repurposed this
idea and it was much better handled
there our final Lord of Cinder is Prince
Loth the one who started this problem in
the first place but the real question is
why it's the one thing that's been
rattling in my head since the very
beginning why did Loth refuse to link
the flame well the answer is honestly a
bit sad Prince Loth was born to die the
rulers of Loth Were King Osiris and his
Queen Osiris had three children named
lauan lothric and ocelot lauan was the
first and was a formidable soldier on
the battlefield who was able to
single-handedly defeat the demon prince
who is said to rule over all the demons
Osiris figured that his lineage could
push their power even further by
creating a child specifically to become
a lord of Cinder and lothric was to be
that child but he failed Loth wasn't
strong enough so the family committed a
deed so heinous that it cursed him for
Life despite the curse though it worked
and Loth was capable of relinking the
flame but his frail body combined with
his poor health left him bedridden and
resentful being The Helpful brother that
he was lauan wanted to combine his soul
with lathrix but because of lothric's
curse it consumed lauan as well which
left him mute and a due to this
the current state of the world and the
fact that even his teacher was having
doubts about relinking the flame It
ultimately caused lothi to refuse and
honestly it's hard to blame him being
created for the sake of power and not
knowing what your sacrifice will truly
do is a hard burden to put on a child
especially when you consider how much
grooming was presumably done to get Laur
ready to link the flame had he been
brought up in a different light this
story could have been changed but due to
the greed of the King It ultimately
started a chain of events that would
bring about the end of the world at the
very least though the twin princes
weren't the only ones that suffered
Osiris is more Dragon than human now and
has gone insane because of it similar to
how Big Hat Logan became deranged from
the knowledge he read on SE so to did
Osiris and depending on what you believe
believe he may also be hallucinating
during the fight he talks about his son
ocelot and we can infer that he's
carrying him in his hand but nothing is
there this however may not be as obvious
as it seems there's currently two
theories I believe in that argue for and
against ocel lot's existence on one hand
ocelot may be a hallucination from the
King either because assalot died and he
can't accept the loss or that he had
been hallucinating the mere idea that he
had a child in the first place however
on the other hand ocelot may actually
exist but was removed due to some real
wol complications during the second
phase of the boss fight Osiris will
scream acel lot's name then slam the
hand that carries him into the ground
presumably killing him we can hear a
baby crying in the background during the
fight implying that he lived but I think
this was a loophole by from software to
get rid of complaints killing kids in
games if I'm not mistaken will get a
game banned just about everywhere and
from software has honored this Rule and
rarely ever adds kids their games to
begin with the only ones that come to
mind are Kuro and seiro and father gaso
and's daughter in bloodborne but his
daughter is never seen as we're forced
to talk to her through a wall and while
C does make an appearance numerous times
he is never shown to be harmed there are
three parts in the game that c is
actually cut with something and each
time it happens we never actually see
the real act it is of course implied
that he has suffered a wound but it's
never actually shown from software most
likely wanted to add ocelot and his
death to the game but couldn't due to
the possibility of the game being banned
personally I've always been a fan of the
four party and do believe that the king
is not hallucinating and ocelot was
meant to be in the game because this
also connects to the king's current
mindset as he is going so insane that he
doesn't even realize the harm he's
putting his child in but to make matters
worse while the King was consumed by
se's writings on immortality and the
twins were currently suffering through
no fault of their own the queen had just
decided to leave she disappeared quietly
into the night from the kingdom and was
never seen again the Queen's identity
though is unknown but it is heavily
theorized to be gwy from Dark Souls 1 we
know that gvir bestowed Divine blessings
to her people and was seen as a symbol
of bounty and fertility because of it
and the divine blessing of Dark Souls 3
says that the queen of lothric was
initially revered as a goddess of
fertility and Bounty but the issue is
that we know that she left an Orlando
and became the wife of a flame God flan
so how did she go from him to Osiris and
why did she leave him and come back here
furthermore if gwindel was actually
trying to get the gods back in an
Orlando how did the two never find one
another and why didn't Gwen ofir come
back this could have been due to the
presence of Aldrich and the pontiff
within the cathedral but this also calls
into question Rosaria as her soul can
create the Bountiful sunlight Miracle
which is one of the Miracles of Gwen and
given the presentation of both
characters from the room's layout to
their positions on the bed it's clear
that there is a connection between the
two whether Rosaria is actually Gwen or
simply someone Gwen knew is never
explicitly told to us and really in the
grand scheme of things it doesn't really
matter but it is a very interesting
Theory nonetheless it's clear though to
no one's surprised that the royal family
is in disarray and is currently
suffering just like the kingdom is
despite this though the Knights of the
Kingdom still stay strong and continue
to defend the castle against the
corruption that is the puss of man but
it's starting to fight back as the puss
of man is embedded Within These twin
wyverns and many of the Castle's
soldiers and it seems like the pilgrims
of londor have also started advancing on
the castle as they've managed to control
the armor of the Dragon Slayer and use
it as a tool of their destruction after
battling through all of this chaos
though we can finally meet the prince
himself the twin princes actually go
against the status quo of the game not
just in their decision to refuse the
throne but also in how they're presented
to the player lothric in a way is this
game's Gwyn or Vendrick he's clearly not
on the same level as the other two but
it was lothric's choices that set the
Game's plot into motion just like how
Gwyn Advent rri's choices said their
games pled into motion instead of being
presented as a shambling corpse wrick is
the opposite even if he's just some
bedridden child that's cursed with a
lifelong illness the boss fight isn't
this sad encounter that makes you feel
like you're doing them a service by
putting them out of their misery you're
fighting a being who is extremely
powerful and is fully conscious of their
actions as opposed to the hollow
versions of the other two it was a
wonderful twist as I expected to be
greeted by a somber tune all while
seeing the death and Decay that has
continued to spread throughout the
kingdom reach the prin Chambers but I
didn't and that surprised me and now is
probably a good time to correct a
previous statement of mine a couple
months ago I made a review on Dark Souls
3 it was a bit more gameplay Centric
than this video is but in that video I
said despite loving the twin princes
laurian had always pissed me off due to
his awful teleportation ability and I
want to rectify that statement as I
never felt these feelings this time
around in the previous video on Dark
Souls 2 I talked about how the quality
of these bosses will always be a
subjective opinion as the boss's
enjoyment largely depends on the build
and the skill of the player I naively at
the time did not take this into
consideration and never considered that
I was the problem looking at the gaml
now is downright embarrassing and I
realized that lauan was never the issue
it was me yes his teleport move does
occasionally break line of sight which
is still annoying but everything was not
as bad as I had made it out to be I
always liked the twin princes as a boss
fight that opinion has never changed but
I think I can now officially say that
it's not only the best Lord of Cinder
fight in the game which easily one of
the few fights in Dark Souls I that I
consider completely perfect the she Pres
pres of these two is amazing the fight
is pretty much laurian versus the player
Loth is able to protect lauran with
magic and heal him once he dies the same
way the player can heal with Estus and
use their equipment to Aid them Loth is
like the support role in this Duo but
he's also the main character that needs
to be defeated as he can obviously
revive lauan but his magic forces the
player to not engage them prolonging the
fight even longer than it already is
giving lauan enough time to finish us
off and the fact that the duo manages to
be a threat no matter the distance
always adds to the intensity of the
fight I've always been one to admit when
I'm wrong and except the fact that my
opinions are never meant to be set in
stone and can always be changed and this
playthrough thoroughly changed my mind
about this fight as the twin princes are
not only worthy of the title Lord of
Cinder but were such an excellent boss
to put at the end of The Journey out of
all the souls games I ended up talking
about these bosses the most out of any
in the trilogy and this is doe in part
of the Lord Of Cinders being the only
objective in the game so talking about
them is really all we can discuss they
are the main focus of the game and thus
need to have detail lore to back it up
this was forgivable in the other game
games as while those beings did have
some importance in the world they
weren't the main focus but in Dark Souls
3 they are if it wasn't for the Lords of
Cinder we wouldn't have a game so they
ended up becoming the main focus of the
story and the devs managed to deliver
Aldrich is a testament to that statement
as I may have spent more time on them
than any character in the series with
the exception of the witch of isth who
coincidentally also had numerous bosses
and characters tied to her plot I was
really impressed by the overall
presentation of this game especially
when it came to our four Lords of Cinder
even including yorm who had a wonderful
design and presentation despite the
fight being a bit blackluster their lore
was rich with details and the item
descriptions were long enough to create
an essay's worth of information but also
left enough info out to keep that Soul's
Spirit of finding the context clues and
filling in the gaps plus the encounters
with said bosses made the time spent
getting to them worth it even yorm as
once again despite being disappointing
there was at least an attempt to create
the spectacle of tackling a monolithic
siiz giant but if there was one thing
that bothered me about this game it was
the lack of attention given to Dark
Souls 2 narratively this actually fits
quite well as Strang Lake was supposed
to be seen as this unimportant Kingdom
that would be easily toppled and
replaced with something else in time
only to be forgotten by the rest of the
world but if the point was to make the
kingdom feel unimportant why are there
constant references to it like kraton
appearing in cirus' quest lucatiel's
armor and ASO sword resurfacing in the
game the dead giant at Firelink Shrine
and not only a portrait of nandra but of
aam Lo and broom Tower found in iril it
just feels confusing it's like the team
actively wants the player to know that
despite not making Dark Souls 2 they are
aware and care about the game but barely
put in the effort to justify it what is
truly the most upsetting part about this
is that both Vendrick and Alia to my
knowledge are never mentioned once
throughout the game there is one magic
spell found in the grand archives that
says the words the first of the scholars
which many people have pointed towards a
link to Alia but he was a scholar of the
first sin not a first scholar plus the
first of the scholars could refer to the
scholars of the grand archives not Alia
it's a shame because they were the only
beings that we know of who sought to
break the curse through unconventional
means and there's zero remnants of their
work the two are never brought up in the
game and the actual structures of Drang
Lake or alus keep are never seen in game
I understand that Dark Souls I was not
everybody's cup of tea and maybe the
original team wanted to do away with the
B team's creation but you can't deny
that Vendrick and Alia had the potential
to create a sizable impact on the story
and for their legacy to be tarnished
like this is a bit disappointing with
all the Lords of Cinder dead and their
ashes within our inventory we can now
link the first flame but before we do
that there is two DLCs and a couple
other bits of content for the main areas
that I want to address first if we
rewind and go back to Osiris and visit
the area behind his boss Arena will
uncover a place called the untended
graves this place is identical to the
cemetery of Ash in the beginning of the
game with the only difference being the
lighting it's one of the most talked
about locations within the community as
this confusion coupled with this feeling
of nervousness settles in as upon entry
you start to recognize all the familiar
Landscapes and are just bewildered that
a place like this even exists the boss
is also identical as it's Champion Gere
as opposed to udx according to his
bosold description Champion gundar came
to Firelink Shrine to relink the fire
but failed and arrived too late he was
then eventually bested by an unknown
Warrior and given the series heavy use
of that term we can assume that this
Warrior was us afterwards he then became
a sheath for the coiled sword so similar
to ulil and the memory of the Giants we
can go back in the past kill Champion
Gunder who then becomes a sheath for the
coiled sword and hopes say another
Warrior will come and use it to link the
flame who just happens to be us we then
take the sword from his present body as
udic gundar and use it at the bonfire if
we happen to defeat Champion gundar
though we'll be greeted with an
identical Firelink Shrine and while the
firekeeper is not here there are an eyes
of a firekeeper located inside the
building if we have the eyes in our
inventory lwith and the fire keeper will
comment on them lli refers to the
firekeeper as her implying that he knows
the identity of this person in the fire
keeper will mention how these eyes
reveal frightening images of betrayal in
a world without fire so we can assume
that this was in the past and since lth
is familiar with the fire keeper and is
a lord of it's possible that this was
during the time he linked the fire which
would also connect with the intro of the
game that says that the land of Lords
are converging together this L just
happens to be lths but what doesn't make
sense is the handmaid's dialogue as in
the dark Firelink Shrine her attitude
seems to imply that the flame is still
lit as she tells us to hurry along but
how is this possible well sadly I don't
have an answer for that the untended
graves is one of the hardest parts of
this game to wrap your head around which
makes discussing it extremely difficult
one explanation though could be that the
FireKeeper's eyes are what's causing
this dark Ness as the world in present
day Dark Souls 3 is getting close to the
age of dark as evidenced by the giant
dark sign eclipse in the sky but there's
still plenty of light left in this world
whereas in the untended graves there's
nothing but if all the lights extinguish
and that implies that this is an age of
dark but love the link the flame and
continue the age of fire so that's why I
think it's the eyes of a fire keeper
displaying a vision in the sense of what
the world would come to should we enact
this Grand betrayal which is letting the
flame die out another thing of note
though is the repair spell in Dark Souls
3 which says that light is time and the
reversal of its effects is a forbidden
art so this implies the untended graves
could be like the things betwix it's
sort of stuck in limbo because there's
no light existing and therefore time not
existing regardless this but it's very
confusing backstory it's probably my
favorite location to discuss in the game
as there's so many possibilities as what
this place truly means the final
location is near IRL dungeon as we can
use the dragon pose from the untended
graves to be transported into Ark Dragon
Peak we already know that immortality
via Dragon form is not unheard of as
many people worship these Stone dragon
in Dark Souls 1 Osiris is assumed to be
human before he became a dragon and we
can actually find some Dragon Stones
which will turn us into a humanoid
Dragon similar to the one sitting next
to us so it's pretty safe to assume that
this place was used to worship the
ancient dragons despite the fact that
they're all dead now but even though
they're all dead that doesn't mean the
other flying types won't exist as we get
to challenge a wyvern shortly after
arriving which at first glance is a
pretty cool fight until you realize that
the enemies on the walkways are actually
tougher than the boss itself I can
recognize that the team was most likely
experimenting with some B ideas for boss
fights and while it's definitely cool at
first it just feels a bit unnatural if
you will as completely destroying its
health bar in one plunge attack just
felt off Arc Dragon Peak not only has a
questionable first boss but also raises
various questions that admittedly may
leave people confused two characters
have arrived at this location at certain
points in time which are havl and
orstein we find havl next to a down
dragon and we find ornstein's armor
towards the end of the level I can
forgive havl for being here since he's
always had a hatred for dragons and
seaths since Dark Souls 1 but that
doesn't explain how he's alive well havl
had a band of knights who followed him
and more than likely wore the same armor
as he did so I don't think this is havl
more just a knight of havl but while
this is explained fairly easily orstein
is not orstein has always had a
complicated history within the series as
he was clearly present in Dark Souls 1
but then shows up again in Dark Souls 2
as the old Dragon Slayer and then again
in this game as the dragon slayer armor
and in Arc Dragon Peak where we are now
firstly I've always been a firm believer
in the fact that we kill orstein in Dark
Souls 1 the old dragon slayer is simply
someone who is trying to uphold ste's
Legacy or is somehow connected to
orstein Soul since we know from Dark
Souls 2 that the old Lord Souls can
inhibit others bodies so it's possible
or's Soul inhibited someone wearing his
armor it's also possible that the soul
felt comfortable with this decision
given or Stein's armor is pretty
synonymous with his legacy as for Dark
Souls 3 we know that the dragon slayer
armor is not orstein is simply just
another dragon slayer as the weapon and
armor are completely different but AR
Dragon Peak is unique this is not only
the same armor that orstein wore but its
item description talks about how he left
the anal orando Cathedral to come here
but when did this happen he couldn't
have came here and then went back to the
cathedral as his armor is located here
and he couldn't have left after Dark
Souls 1 because he died so the only real
explanation that makes any plausible
sense is that orstein dies in Dark Souls
1 he then has his soul return like the
previous Lord Soul wears but decides to
inhabit someone wearing his armor or
maybe even the armor itself as it's
familiar to the soul we talked about in
Dark Souls 2 how it seemed like the four
great ones were connected to specific
Lord Souls because of their feelings and
emotions we still don't know whether or
not these Lord Souls connected with them
because of these similar emotions or if
they gain these feelings from consuming
the souls but if this is true then it
would make sense that orstein is
continuing to fight the same and has the
same goals and Ambitions across all the
games regardless of how orstein is a
live verb how he even ended up here in
the first place we at least know why he
was here and that was because of the
nameless King the nameless King has
actually been teased since Dark Souls 1
as he was the infamous firstborn son of
Gwyn that was referenced in various
items in that game from both one and
three we can piece together that the
nameless King is the firstborn son of
Gwyn and was a dragon slayer during the
war with the Everlasting dragons but at
some point he would eventually cast all
this away and Ally himself with the
dragons and if you want to talk about
presentation when it comes to boss
fights this one needs to be mentioned
not only does the introduction of the
boss feel intense as the nameless King
swoops in on a storm Drake but when we
finish the Drake off he literally kills
it and takes the power for himself from
just a pure gameplay perspective he's
easily the second best fight in the game
there's a feeling that occurs across the
entire series when everything comes
together you've learned the move set
understood the timings and discover the
punishes all that's required is to put
it together and when that clicks it
becomes one of the best fights in the
game his moves are punishing have delays
and are even mixed together as one combo
might have two swings but the next will
be three or it will do away with the
third swing and add a completely
different move the fight requires
complete concentration and the ability
to be patient dodging too early will
more often than not lead to your death
so you have to be on high alert for the
whole fight genuinely a great fight from
top to bottom with it only being
surpassed by one being we have yet to
cover but before before we move on to
the DLC I want to look back at the game
so far Dark Souls III set out to create
a Dying World that features places that
have been ridden with disease and death
showing to the player that their
inability to let go of what they know
and continue this age of fire will only
make things worse even a basic
understanding of the war will convey
this as you can see just how bad
everything has gotten from the fact that
there's hundreds of dead bodies lit
throughout each level and people are
becoming corrupted and infected with
these diseases and plagues causing them
to either go Hollow or turn into a
massive black sludge the demon race a
group of beings thought to be on top are
dying out the gods have all been wiped
out and the Lords of Cinder beings who
have the ability to rule over anything
they please due to their power refuse to
continue this age of fire Aldrich wants
to continue his own age so admittedly
that is a bit more selfish but the other
three have recognized that their
sacrifice did or will amount to nothing
linking the flame never stopped the
abyss and never stopped the profane
flame and it's never going to end the
suffering that's occurred since lordran
so if the first flame is supposed to be
this symbol of peace and comfort then
what is actually so good about it all of
this has been Illustrated to us
throughout the story and is a testament
to how genius the writing of Dark Souls
3i truly is but now it's time to move on
not just to a new agees that will come
later but to a new world a painted world
even this old man in front of us is Gail
and he's how we start the DLC ashes of
arandel we talked about this place
briefly when we discussed pontiff
Sullivan and said it was a painted world
for those without purpose upon entering
we're greeted by a deformed being who
welcomes us and tells us to get
comfortable on a bed of rot similar to
The Real World The Painted worlds have
their own cycle and it's this cycle that
is so interesting as in the main game
the age of fire is being constantly
prolonged and it's the age of dark that
will take it over but as we'll soon see
it's the rot that's being prolonged and
the only way to get rid of it is to burn
it the painted world of arandel is just
a similar version of the Dark Souls
Universe with the same themes and ideas
just twisted around they're both
separate worlds with separate cycles and
each one has a particular cycle that is
going on too long and it's either the
fire that's causing it or the fire that
will get rid of it this is also the
reason Gail sends us to the painted
world in the first place as opposed to
the corvian we meet first who tells us
to embrace the rot Gail and even this
corvian settler want us to set it a
flame setting the painting a flame will
allow a new painted world to be created
but they can't do that without fire and
the person preventing this is Sister
freed she is the reason the rot is being
prolonged and she's also the other Ash
that the Gale and the corvian refer to
meaning she's unkindled it's because of
her decision to keep the rock going that
has caused much of the destruction of
this place interestingly though only the
corvians seem to care as we talked about
the painted world is for those without
purpose and the corvians aren't the only
ones who reside here as the soldiers are
the members of the undead Legion of fen
in the beginning of the video when we
talked about the abyss Watchers I
mentioned that when they linked the
flame the rest of the Legion left once
that occurred the others no longer had a
purpose and further lost any chance of
having one once they came to the
realization that their home had turned
into a swamp according to their armor
these Fen followers seem to be
specifically tasked with killing any
Undead Legion who succumbed to the abyss
which makes me wonder how the abyss
Watchers cut scene would have played out
had the Assassins not left maybe the
abyss Waters would have finally been
able to regain their strength again now
that they didn't have to kill each other
the other group of of people are the
Milwood Knights they don't have too much
lore and anything to really tie any of
the characters or events to them but at
some point in time they lost their
Forest that they called home and then
sought refuge in the painted world these
groups seem to just carry on throughout
their day and simply exist within the
painted world but the corvians are
different as you have the regular
looking settlers who want to burn the
rod away but then there's also the
corvian knights who were so infatuated
with sister free that they've now turned
against their Brethren just the basic
idea of what the painted world
represents to the people within it is
such an intriguing concept the way this
Loosely connects to the main game's
themes is genius one thing I always
found disappointing though about Ash
sarenda was the length once we enter the
painting we were to meet with sister
Fred who welcomes us but just as quickly
dismisses our arrival and tells us to
leave because we no longer belong here I
have no issue with this as it's not
holding the player's hand but everything
just feels like it's going so fast is
right after this we're to find the
painter enter the basement of sister
Freed's Church activate a lever and then
we're already at the final boss
everything just feels so fast and I was
surprised how quickly the final boss was
introduced to me I've talked about
before how most of the souls games DLCs
are like this and don't take much time
overall this of course though largely
depends on how fast you beat the bosses
as they're usually the main hurdles but
ashes of Arendelle felt shorter than
normal there is an optional boss that
could take up more of your time but this
was just so that the player could access
the PVP matches and the lore of the boss
also connects to this as this was the
champion of the undead matches that the
undead used to partake in other than
that it's pretty much just going from
one area to the next and the distance
between them is quite short once we do
finish talking with sister Freda though
our path will eventually lead us to the
corvian settlements and its Church where
we will meet with sir vilhelm he was the
guard that was outside the church where
sister Fred was located but what's more
interesting though about Sir vilhelm is
that he not only has a black flame buff
on his weapon but he also wields the
dark hand both of which have ties to the
abyss this relates back to Sister Freda
as she was one of the three sisters of
the Sable Church her other sisters were
Lilian and yuria which means she has
ties to londor and this is reinforced by
the different dialogue options that we
get from her if we have the dark sigils
in inventory from yuria's quest line
it's not much but she does recognize us
as the Lord of Hollows given that she is
unkindled it's possible that she tried
to link The Flame or usurp it and this
possibly got her Exile from the church
without a purpose or home she may have
been drawn to the painted world which is
how she ended up here in the first place
and figured that she could rule over
this land by herself however given that
we have this innate ability to ruin
people's plans we're going to prevent
sister freed from doing so to do this we
need to talk to the painter and unlock
the doors leading to her room for her to
be able to paintt though she will need
to see Flame and to do this we need to
get to the source I see
flame flame fuckering once
again not enough bloody Ed
shade my
fle bring me my
F this is Father arendel the painter of
the painted world of arendel who is now
being held captive by Sister Freda she
managed to convince father Arendelle
that the only way to preserve the
painted world was to bury the flame and
let the rock consume the world to stop
him from spreading he uses his flail on
himself causing him to bleed which
appeases the flame it's quite a sad
story and it makes sister Freda out to
be even worse of a person than she
already was given that we're going
against her wishes though she fights us
and she is very difficult which is also
very entertaining I love this fight and
I think it's a great way to end the DLC
the fight starts out quite normal until
her blood reaches father arandel who
freaks out causing the room to be
engulfed in flames and him to break out
of his restraints and attack us Fred is
is also back and it turns into a 2V1
it's very reminiscent of orstein and Smo
as the doo compliments each other quite
well this is also the only fight in the
trilogy to my knowledge where you can
summon an NPC in the middle of the fight
as Gail can only be summoned for the
second phase it also makes sense to
bring him along since both you and him
have the same objective so there's no
reason for him not to help you after
sister Freda has been dealt with though
we can return to
the A
the yeah so if it wasn't already bad
enough sister Freda has a third phase
this whole encounter is extremely
stressful as you not only have to plan
for one but two extra phases there's
been so many times where I got pummeled
during this fight in the first phase
that I just reset as I knew it wasn't
worth starting the next phase with half
the Estus she really forces the player
to learn her move set thankfully though
Gail does make the encounter easier but
it's still very difficult even with his
assist
with sister Fred and father arandel dead
for a real this time the fire will now
be able to consume the painting without
any delays which means the painter can
now work on the new world she plans to
create a cold dark and very gentle place
as she calls it she's going to need
Paint to make that painting and from
what we learned from father arendelle's
Soul we know that the paintings are
Written in Blood so Gail's objective
will be to scour the land for some blood
to use his pigment and while he does
that we can go on to the next DLC but
Gail's here too he has written messages
for us and points us towards where we're
supposed to go so what blood is he
getting well Gail is trying to find the
blood of the Dark Soul the Dark Soul
which leads him to the ring City ashes
of arendo was a short but decent DLC the
bosses were great and the actual design
of arendo was beautiful from its frozen
Tundras to its rotted swamps but if it
fell complete or if the DLC suddenly
ended so soon that's the point as both
of Dark Souls 3i's DLCs are a connected
story the story of Gail and the painter
and their quest to create a new world
which leads us to the ring City the
start of the Ring City DLC sees us
travel to the drag Heap the area we
talked about earlier in the video as I
said then time is getting worse as the
world progresses and this is a perfect
example as now that the age of fire is
getting even closer to the end lands are
converging on each other more and more
and the world is practically collapsing
in on itself here in the drag keep we
can see nostalgic callbacks to the Past
like the earn Peak Windmill and the
desert pyromancer from Dark Souls 2 this
is a very long and convoluted level to
really showcase how bad everything has
gotten but at the very end of the level
is the demon Duo not not only is the
gameplay of this fight fantastic as it
not only surpasses the previous Duo but
might even be on par as orstein and Smo
but the location of the fight is heavily
theorized to be the original Firelink
Shrine of Dark Souls 1 the reason being
is that the exit of this arena is the
same structure that framp appears in
Gail can once again join you for this
fight but it will trivialize this
encounter tremendously as the demons
have long cooldowns between their
attacks and also alternate move sets I
actually found this fight to be balanced
while being outnumbered so adding more
people makes it worse once the demons
are both dead the last one to die gets
to be reborn as the demon Prince just
like the first Flame the chaos flame
needed to be rekindled by a demon with
vast power and the current demon Prince
at the time was going to but ended up
facing lauan and was defeated however
all demons share memories with another
so in theory that means they can share
the power of the demon Prince and when
the last demon Falls it is reborn as the
demon Prince and the last of its kind
the demon Prince is a genuinely great
fight and for being the first boss in
the DLC this is already a great start to
the additional content when the demon
Prince does fall though we can finally
say goodbye to the demons the once great
race thought to be almost on top has now
withered away never to be remembered
again just like everything else in this
world with the drag he finished we can
move on to the final location of the DLC
but one thing that's been very
interesting about the drag he is the
progression of time as we go further
down in the game we're actually going
further back in the past as we start out
at the very top in Dark Souls 3 we move
further down to Dark Souls 2 with the
earn Peak making an appearance and then
we're all the way at the bottom where
we're back in Dark Souls 1 with the
Firelink Shrine but we can go even
further further back as past the old
Firelink Shrine we can travel to the
ring City a place that has existed since
the gods toppled the dragons the ring
city is gorgeous and is one of the most
beautiful locations in the Dark Souls
Trilogy this place is home to the pygmy
Lords and they have a wonderful
welcoming
committee oddly enough though these
shadow archers actually look like the
Ruin Sentinels from Dark Souls 2
according to their armor set they were a
band of knights who were sent to the
ring City so it's possible that Vendrick
may have sent them here as a way to find
out more about the undead curse but were
defeated and now are used by the city to
defend its people the ring city is the
home of the pygmies the ancestors of
mankind we don't hear much regarding the
actual furtive pygmy but the ring city
is ruled by the pygmy Lords the early
descendants of the original pygmy
according to various item descriptions
though Gwyn gave them the city as a
reward for their help against the
dragons but since this is located at the
literal edge of the world it's possible
Gwyn wanted the pygmies out of sight and
away from his kingdom since they had the
Dark Soul which of of course he does not
like as for how the pygmies helped
during the war well we can find out soon
after as these ringed Knights were some
of the soldiers who fought during the
war with the Everlasting dragons the
weapons they carry were forged from the
abyss since that was the birthplace of
humanity which would explain the BL and
dark sign on their chest as it seems
that they too were cursed like we were
by Gwyn if we progress further into the
level we'll end up in this Abyssal swamp
and end up fighting the dragon slayer
armor again and if we read description
we'll discover that when we defeated it
in lothric it somehow made its way down
here and then became possessed Again by
the feeling of battle
look I love orstein as much as the next
guy but we do not have to keep bringing
him back we can just let his legacy die
I understand in this case it is just a
piece of armor and not actually orstein
but you have to admit that this boss's
design is purposely similar to orstein I
found this encounter more annoying
rather than interesting as there was
Zero reason to bring back the dragon
slayer armor again in the swamp we can
also find a white face Locust similar to
the one earlier in the level these
Locust are beings from the abyss and
they were were supposed to preach
sermons to men so that they could draw
them towards the dark but they couldn't
see past their stomachs and cared more
about what they were eating which is why
they act like gluttonous monsters this
description means that this is what they
always looked like and didn't turn into
these creatures at some point but it may
also imply that they were born alongside
Humanity within the abyss each of them
ends up talking about specific people
and are possibly referencing certain
NPCs and so she lived in fear of the
Dark of the things that gned at her
flesh the little creatures that nibble
at me in the
darkness and so despite his weighty
armor he lived in fear of a delicate
thing little more than a girl where fire
rideth Shadows twist and shrivel but in
the
abyss there are shadows none fear not
the dark my friend and let the feast
begin I've always found this interaction
and odd as it's unclear how this
creature even knows anything about these
NPCs this has caused a bit of debate
amongst many people in the community as
some claim that it's showing how
destructive humanity is but on the other
hand like with the case of ir's dialogue
the Locust preacher could be implying
that the abyss is not as bad as it seems
as that preconceived idea Irina had of
the Abyss caused her to feel these
insect likee creatures in her head I
don't really think that there is a
correct answer here as sort of ties into
the world of Dark Souls and how the
player views the abyss humanity and the
age of dark and whether or not it's
something that they should be embracing
similar to how we have to make a choice
at the end of the games before we leave
though we can view this purging Monument
which is only accessible to humans as to
even get to this area we need to
transform into a Humanity Sprite using a
white tree branch this Monument may be
the source of all the purging Stones
purging stones have existed since Dark
Souls 1 and we're used to remove the
curse effect in that game but it's not
about taking the curse and removing it
it's just transferring it to the stone
itself to be the new host but the stone
is said to Once be a person so maybe
these are the beings who were turned
into stone or what they became once we
transfer the curse to the stone or maybe
it's something else entirely after
getting out of the swamp we'll find a
dragon named Mader this isn't fake like
the ancient dragon Mader is an actual
descendant of the Ark dragons from long
ago even though he only seems to make an
appearance here if we knock him off the
bridge and find a secret tunnel we can
find him again he is easily the most
difficult boss in the entire game with a
staggering 15,000 health and he's also
equipped with some moves that might
on-shot the player depending on their
equipment according to his boss Soul
Madar was actually raised by the gods
and was tasked with fighting the the
abyss and it seems that he's been alive
for a long time as one description says
from not long after the beginning
meaning he may have existed before even
fire was born back when the dragons
ruled the world the reason he's going so
crazy is very similar to artorius as the
abyss has fully corrupted him so we need
to put him out of his misery he is
definitely the ultimate challenge for
players given his kit of high damaging
moves but assuming you can conquer him
you'll receive the spears of the church
which ties into our next boss halflight
halflight is a member of the Covenant
Spears of the church who guards fillian
or who is said to be Gwynn's daughter
who he left here in the ring City but
halflight is a PVP boss as there's a
chance a real player can replace
halflight and be the boss instead but
that is only accessible to those who
defeat Madar since he drops the pendant
that allows you to access the Covenant
sadly though since this game is over 6
years old you'll more than likely just
get halflight instead interestingly
though halflight may have been from ulil
as the bow he uses says that it was a
relic from an ancient land of sorceries
that has been swallowed by the abyss and
we know that ulio has many unique spells
like repair hidden body and chameleon
his outfit also states that a group of
young missionaries went to the ring City
long ago but halflight stayed behind
making him the final Spear of the church
this would also mean that there was a
time in uil's history when it wasn't
corrupted by the abyss and was a normal
land before cth came and tricked them
behind the church is filor the girl they
swore to protect and she may have one of
the best cut scenes the series has to
offer upon touching her egg she wakes up
which sees the world change out of
everything in the Dark Souls Series this
might be at the top as the most talked
about interaction in the game as there's
so much that happen happens with very
little explanation as to what it means
many people believe that fanor and her
egg held up the illusion of the Ring
City similar to gwindel and an Orlando
and Dark Souls 1 but some have also
claimed that this takes us to the Future
and is a glimpse of what the world will
look like should we keep things going
her egg though is interesting as it has
a very dark Center and if we relate this
back to the repair spell from earlier
that's as light as time by breaking the
egg we break the dark inside of it which
allows light to appear meaning now time
exists and is no longer stagnant which
would go along with the the that this is
a future as the time accelerates after
being stagnant for so long regardless of
what you believe in though this cutscene
is great and allows us to access the
Wasteland of Ash inside this Wasteland
is two beings and if you subscribe to
the theory that this is the future this
might be the last two beings left in the
world us and
Gail what still here
handed over that thing your Dark Soul
Gail has not only gone mad and grown in
size but he is the final boss of the DLC
the ring city was the final DLC and also
the final piece of content in the Dark
Souls Trilogy having played this game on
release I had already beaten the final
boss tons of times so for me Gail was
technically my final boss of Dark Souls
and I couldn't have asked for anything
better to me Gail is the best boss in
the game and even the entire Trilogy
every everything from design to
presentation to gameplay is completely
perfect Gail is a slave Knight who are
Knights that were used as fod in many of
the land's bleakest Wars but it seems
most of them went Hollow all except for
Gail Gail came to the ring City in
search of the Dark Souls and thus
slaughtered the pygmy Lords as they
contain the Dark Souls within them since
they're the descendants of the furtive
pygmy but Gail realized that the Dark
Souls had dried up so in order to make
them liquid enough to be used as pigment
he consumed the Dark Souls that They
Carried since it was now in his
bloodstream it was able to mix into into
a liquid again but doing so made him go
mad Gail literally has the power of the
dark soul within his body and uses the
power of the dark soul and the abyss to
fight us as evident by these red skulls
that appear from his cape he and Gwyn
also contrast each other in this respect
Gwyn was a being who was a god from the
beginning and on top of the food chain
and is remembered by all for his
sacrifice but Gail was a slave the
lowest of the low whose sacrifice will
be known by only us a lowly piece of
unkindled Ash this sacrifice of gals
ties into a theory of mine after his
death we can take the blood of the dark
soul to the painter to be used as Pigman
for her new world Gail knew he wouldn't
make it back but continued his mission
Anyway by handing it off to us he helps
us defeat sister Freda and the demon
Prince which are the two required bosses
we need to beat to get to the ring City
and once we do get to the ring City he
leaves markings of his cape along the
way that it will eventually point us
towards his location he wanted us to
find him and he wanted us to defeat him
so that we can continue his mission for
him and give the painter the blood she
needed as a whole Gail is easily my
favorite character character and boss in
this game he is like us a nobody he
isn't some Godlike figure or a being who
was born with insurmountable power he
like US gain this power through battle
and now the two strongest beings in the
world are duking it out at the edge of
the world truly the best boss this game
has to offer and was the best way to end
all the dlc's with Gail defeated we can
now give the painter the pigment she
thanks us and will eventually start
painting she never actually finishes the
painting though and this is an important
detail just like the other DLCs in the
trilogy this isn't the end of the game
the final boss is at the Kiln it's not
Gail so giving her this pigment doesn't
mean the end of the game it's just one
part of our long journey even if it
seems like a wonderful conclusion to the
game the DLCs of Dark Souls are the best
in the series and the ring city is a big
reason why ash is a very Andel is great
and a nice additional Side Story
especially since we get to learn more
about the painted worlds but the
callbacks references and answers to
questions we've been wondering about for
years are what makes this DLC so
impressive furthermore both DLCs have
some of the most intense fights in the
game and are the Pinnacle of this game's
combat from software has always made
their DLCs with Incredible quality and
sometimes are even better than the main
game and Dark Souls II continues to
honor this tradition Gail's objective is
now complete so now it's time to
complete ours which is go to the Kiln
and determine the fate of the world once
again defending this Kiln is being known
as the soul of Cinder this is the
physical manifestation of every being to
link the flame since its Inception
meaning our characters from Dark Souls 1
and 2 are a part of this being he also
fights like a real player too as his
move set is by far the most diverse in
the game he has three different melee
weapons uses all the schools of magic
and even has the ninja flipping from
Dark Souls 1 but our old characters
aren't the only ones in this being there
is one other character we know of the
one who was here from the very beginning
he was the one that created this world
so it's ironic that he gets to be here
for when we destroy it
oh
the soul of Cinder not only has the same
move set as Gwyn but also the same piano
and its theme music I'll be honest I get
a bit emotional whenever I hear this
hearing that piano made me think of the
journey I had taken to get here all the
defeats and victories all the NPCs I had
encountered all the kingdoms I uncovered
and all the fates of the people I've met
along the way we have seen the literal
rise and fall of the entire world before
our eyes and every single person and
decision we have made has shaped us into
the person we are now a person who now
has to determine the entire fate of the
world should you go against everything
this game has taught you and still
believe in the first flame you'll be
shown a very depressing ending the Ashen
one links the flame and continues the
age of fire but it's not the spectacle
we saw in Dark Souls 1 it can barely
even cover our character let alone the
rest of the Arena the Ashen one looks
disappointed as if they expected
something more in fact we the player
were probably expecting something more
and are now just as disappointed this is
why I believe that everyone from Gwyn
till now has linked the flame when it
faded as if the world alternated like it
was supposed to then this wouldn't make
sense as to why the flame is this
pitiful the first flame is on its
deathbed and we still haven't granted it
the death it wants if we instead summon
the fire keeper she will take the first
flame and extinguish it for good the age
of dark will commence and the world has
gone completely black and while it may
seem scary to venture into a World
Without fire the fire keeper assures us
that the fire will eventually return
someday just like it did all the years
ago remember things are meant to live
and die the age of dark is temporary and
fire will return and an age of fire will
begin again but hopefully it will not be
extended this time if you're feeling
greedy you can also enact the age of
dark and take the Flames power for
yourself this is similar to our final
ending and the secret ending of Dark
Souls 3 the usurpation of fire this
requires us to complete yuria's quest
line yuria is from a place called londor
and we know that she's also the sister
of Freda and lilianne who created the
Sable Church in londor but what is
londor well it's a land of Hollows as we
can see all the hollows bowing down to
us as the new Lord of Hollows londor
also had many pilgrims that came to this
land possibly to find the first flame
and overtake lothric those Butterflies
from the dragon slayer armor are called
Pilgrim butterflies so maybe this is the
Pilgrim's final form so to speak these
pilgrims are most likely members of the
Sable church as while these sisters
created the church the pilgrims most
likely went here to worship their God
who happens to be the primordial serpent
coth we never see coth in game and the
only reason we even know this is because
of Yu's death dialogue but the call back
to him was insane and almost maybe
nervous for a bit as he could have been
orchestrating this church for who knows
how long so that he finally gets what he
wants if you remember he tricked the
Four Kings and the people of ulil into
being engulfed by the abyss so what's
stopping him from doing it against the
people of londor although in his defense
when we place the Lord vessel in Dark
Souls 1 cot says that every last one of
them failed him so maybe he isn't trying
to screw with londor and possibly found
a genuine group of people that will
follow and carry out his wish
accompanying us into the new world is
also hory of aora who depending on our
actions either got to defeat Aldridge
with us and finally be able to kill the
person she hated the most or gets killed
and unwillingly serves as our bride when
we become the Lord of Hollows which is
quite a dark twist Lor also seems to
embrace its Hollow State but this may
come at a cost Yol of londor can give us
the dark sigils required to progress the
quest line but once he does that he dies
and the Assassin who gives us the
wedding sword dies after the ceremony so
it seems like they're only able to
retain their sanity when Hollow but as a
consequence die once their purpose has
been fulfilled this is just about all we
know in regards to Lor but there is
still quite a few theories involved with
the kingdom such as the fact that Lor
could be tied to Drang Lake or Vela
admittedly it's a small connection but
items from Dark Souls 1 and 2 like the
vow of silence dead again dark drift and
dark hand have had their item
descriptions changed vow of silence in
Dark Souls 1 is a spell that was created
by Vela but in Dark Souls 3 it's used by
members of the church and the dark Drift
from Dark Souls 2 was said to be used by
the grave Warden and the dead Crypt but
in Dark Souls 3 it's used by Uria
however I don't think Vendrick and Alia
are related to this though as the two of
them wanted to remove the curse and Lor
wants to embrace their Hollow form
although in a manner of speaking the
hollow form is the true version of man
and thus could be in a way what the
brothers desired but I'm not too sure I
believe in this Theory especially given
how the brothers are never mentioned in
this game and would be weird if they
finally made an appearance now
regardless now it's time to say goodbye
to the age of fire and to Dark Souls the
age of dark is a metaphor for the Dark
Souls series every Dark Souls game has
taken place in the age of fire and by
keeping this age going we can keep the
Dark Souls games going but is that
really what we want many games have gone
on to make numerous sequels and ruin the
Integrity of that series the age of dark
is not just about moving on from the age
of fire but from Dark Souls itself as
much as I want more Dark Souls games to
keep coming it's only going to ruin the
franchise going forward but that doesn't
mean we have to say goodbye to the souls
genre we have Elden ring and any other
Souls games that come after it so our
hunger for this genre of games will
never die but we do need to say goodbye
to Dark Souls having Dark Souls end now
means it ends on a high note and I'd
rather see the game quit while it's
ahead than watch it release sequel after
sequel that will inevitably tarnish its
reputation causing it to be one of the
many games in the industry that ran
itself into the dirt so it's time to
finally put this game and its world to
rest thank you for watching