This is Part 2 of my Dark Souls 2 review. Part 1 can be found here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11016255/

My Build

Honestly, my build is quickly explained. I just used the Fire Longsword that I found in the Forest of the fallen Giants within the first 10 hours of gameplay, give or take. This weapon is really strong and kept me going through all of the maps of the first half. Only in Drangleic and the Shrine of Amana do I feel this fully upgraded weapon drop off in damage. So I use a +4 Magic Drangleic Sword instead. But I also have a +8 Greatsword I can use for maximum damage.
Similar to Dark Souls 1, I upgraded many weapons at least to Chunk level. I also upgraded some Armour I was using, but to be fair, not much was wasted since none of my armour pieces made it to Chunk level.
I had a Fire Short bow until I replaced it with a Fire Composite Bow. I had a highly upgraded 0815 Sorcerer Staff until I got the tree branch. I have the Stamina regen Shield on my back, but I never use it for blocking or parrying. I also have a max level Pyromancy Flame.

I currently have 4 spell slots and I used: Repair and Cast Light for Utility, Poison/Toxic Mist in certain situations, Yearn when I thought I could get good use out of it and Soul Spear Barrage, Chaos Storm and Souls Greatsword for damage. Currently equipped are: Cast Light, Toxic Mist, Soul Spear Barrage and Souls Greatsword. I use damage spells for emergencies or just for fun. I primarily fight with my Fire Longsword.

I got one Boss Weapon: Mytha's Bent Blade. My original plan was to be kinda a sneaky assassin who poisons (mini) bosses with this dagger to then fight them normally. I think this hampered me more than benefiting because it does very little damage, both the Blade and the Poison.

My current Armour is: Warlock Mask, Havel's Armour, Havel's Gauntlets and the Furry Tiger Legs since I guess my character just likes it warm and fluffy (In reality because Equip Load). ^^ I think I'll keep this armour for the foreseeable future. Physical Defence and Poise are also rather useless in DS2, so I might just wear what I want.

One final note is, that I just play however I want. I like to fuck around and try out new things I find. If I find a spell that sounds interesting, I don't mind testing it out. Same with weapons. I like doing my own mistakes, I don't want to play perfectly and I know I wont even if I tried. I don't care how skilled I or others are. I just want to have fun. And fun in games to me is primarily just making a build, levelling my character, upgrading my weapons, buying new things, thinking of a strategy and then executing it. My favourite thing in Dark Souls 1 was, that when I had a problem somewhere, the solution was often to just change my approach. In Dark Souls 2 this is similar, also when I think that so far DS2 limits my build options a bit to much via being very slow and many maps having certain ideal ways to approach, at times even certain necessary ways due to the large amount of enemies and their aggro range.

I used Soul Items and Boss Souls like Tic-Tacs. When I don't need a weapon from a Boss Soul, I consume it. I look up what I can get in the Wiki before deciding to use or consume it. So far I got one Boss Weapon: Mytha's Bent Blade.
I didn't farm for Souls or items. While I despawned a few enemies, I only ever cleared one area with the intend of clearing it.

My current Level is 147 or 148.
I have:
25 Vigor (Health; Aim for 30+)
20 Endurance (Stamina; Aim for 30)
25 Vitality (Equip Load; Aim for 30+)
20 Attunement (for 4 Slots; Max so far)
30 Strength (Max so far)
30 DEX (Aim for 35+)
23 INT (25 Max)
10 Faith (Max)
20 Adaptability (I have 100 Agility; Max)

My current goal is to get to 25 INT and then bump up Health, Stamina and Equip Load up to 30. From then, I'll see where I am and what I'll level next. Probably Dex and Health until the end of the game.

I watched a full Lets Play of Dark Souls 2 before playing it. In fact, the Dark Souls 1 and 2 Lets Plays of 'Liquid Blitz' are what made me buy and try out the games in the first place. I also watched Mapolocops's Lets Play of Dark Souls 2 while I was playing it. I also looked up various things on the Wiki, like in my DS1 playthrough. It's how I like to play and it was very fun to me. I also made a List of all Petrified statues I encountered. Same with the Pharros Lockstone Contraptions.

I used a few summons here and there. Out of the 20 bosses I beat until reaching Drangleic Castle, I did 12 solo and summoned for 8. Out of these 8, 5 are for story purposes, like Lucatiel's quest. 1 Summon was just for giggles, 1 summon because the Boss gave me trouble and 1 summon because I knew the Boss fight's gimmicks and I couldn't be asked to do it alone. You'll see which one's which up ahead. :P
I will say though that I'm convinced that I could've beat any of the 8 bosses I summoned for on my own, even if I would've needed 2-5 tries instead of just one. I managed to beat various Bosses on my first attempt on my own.
I also feel that I didn't really miss out on any super fun boss fights by using summons. I don't think that any of the bosses I summoned for would've blown me away in terms of fun and gameplay if I had beaten them alone. At least so far.

I tried to play one lord soul path at a time. First Lost Sinner, then Old Iron King, then the Duke's Dear Freja, then the Rotten. I managed to do that, but there are various things I did in between like depetrifying statues and the like. Now lets get to the first map(s). :D

Before I get to my map and boss recap, let me repeat that I liked playing Dark Souls 2 so far. I might sound overly critical at times, but only because I never hide it when I dislike something. I don't expect do like literally everything in every game I play. Even games I consider S+ Tier 10/10 perfect masterpieces have flaws in them which I can and will complain about if I were to make a review. My (deleted) review of Half Life 2 is the perfect example for that. Yes, some enemies, maps, bosses and things in Dark Souls 2 were very annoying to me. But I still want to play it.

One side-note is, that so far nothing, no map or boss, really stood that out to me in either way, except a few. So far no boss blew me away like Kalameet or Artorias, but no boss (except one) annoyed me like the Capra Demon. No map was as awesome and atmospheric as Ash Lake, the Painted World or Oolacile Township, but none have annoyed me as much as Anor Londo(although a few came close).



Tutorial Areas


Things Betwixt

The Things Betwixt is a great starting area. Its ominous and mysterious, it offers great practice and introduction for new players, and it's completely skippable. The intro cutscene also looks really awesome as well as the whole premise. Dark Souls 2 is a bit more personal. It's less about the world and that you have to kill big fucks to get their souls to rekindle the first flame; and more about your story and what you make of it. This is reflected over multiple NPCs, who all similar to you ended up in Drangleic not knowing why and how. Loss of memory as a sign of hollowing is a predominant theme across this game and the NPCs. No NPC symbolizes this better than Lucatiel, arguably the best NPC in the game. It's rather sad to see her lose herself, at times not even remembering me despite the battles we fought and the victories we gained.
While I do like the more personal story of this game, I do have to say that the game should have mentioned the names of the 4 'great ones' at one point in the intro or thereafter instead of just "Kill 4 big fucks". There's basically no fanfare for any of the 4 major bosses, especially the Lost Sinner.

The NPCs are also less memorable than the ones in Dark Souls 1, except a few. Mainly because most NPCs just don't move around as much as in DS1. Usually they stay where they are or go to Majula and stay there. Only a handful like Benhardt, Lucatiel, Pate or Gavlan move throughout the map. Granted, the same applies to DS1, but in DS2 most NPCs appear a bit more flat than usual. That at times they go "Hi, I'm NAME, let me tell you my life story and/or the lore of this place for no reason." makes this a bit worse. But the lore they give about themselves and the world, however, is interesting. My fav NPCs are Gavlan and Lucatiel, while I personally love the little plot line of Maughlin and the conflict between Pate and Creighton. I also love Rosabeth, the Pyromancer we free from petrification. More on the NPCs as we get to them.

In terms of gameplay, it's just a tutorial area. The enemies aren't to hard and that's fine for a tutorial area. There's one part of the map that's blocked via a petrified statue, but I'll get to that later.
My character is 'Deprived', which means I spawn with no Weapons, no Armour (except the imported set you get after the intro cutscene before making a character) and no Lifegems. My starting Gift was the 'Petrified Something' that I gave to the baby birds. I used their service regularly to get many cool items.


Majula

Majula is the hub of this game. From there you can go to the path towards all 4 Lord Souls more or less directly. In fact, there's 5 paths you can take:
One to the Forest of Fallen Giants, that leads to (part of) the Lost Bastille, Sinner's Rise and the Lost Sinner.
One to Heide's Tower of Flame, that leads via No Man's Wharf to the Lost Bastille and the Lost Sinner.
One to the Huntsman's Copse -> Harvest Valley -> Earthen Peak -> Iron Keep -> Old iron King.
One to the Shaded Woods -> Shaded Ruins -> Doors of Pharros -> Brightstone Cove Tseldora -> Duke's Dear Freja.
And the last to the Grave of Saints -> Gutter -> Black Gulch -> The Rotten.
I really like how open the beginning of the game is. You can technically go to any of these 5 paths first, although you need a few extra steps to enter the Huntsman's Copse, Shaded Woods or the Grave of Saints/Gutter.
The game in of itself is also very, very flexible. You get many, many items that you can either use or sell later. Like 3 different types of herbs that restore different amount of spell uses (like 20%, 50% and 70%) and two items that restore spell uses while healing you. Or 3 items that heal you and cure poison all while having moss that just cures poison. On top of that 3 types of Lifegems and Elizabeth Mushrooms to heal you. With Estus and the Poison/Spell items you have like 10 items that can heal you. And you get various items for certain resistances and boosts of certain damage types and status effects.

Majula in of itself is a very beautiful map and I really like it's relaxing background music. While the DS1 Firelink Shrine is iconic, I personally prefer Majula so far. It's a 9.8/10 vs 9.9/10 kind of deal. The NPCs you gather here are all helpful and for the most part friendly. While I wish some of them had more depth, or had more of a quest line than "buy stuff from them to get a reward" or "after defeating this boss they upgrade their shop", I still like the fact that you transform Majula from a little ruin of a town into a little village of colourful people, a safe haven for most NPCs you meet on your journey. But I will say, that them giving rewards or upgrading their shop after certain events or you spend a certain amount with them is a nice touch to keep you invested into them, to incite you to buy from them (or use their service) and to talk to them regularly. I know I just criticized exactly that for not being enough, but I still like it, even if I wish they would do a bit more with at least a few more NPCs.


The Forest of Fallen Giants

Yes, I do consider the Forest of Fallen Giants part of the tutorial areas. The same way I would consider the Undead Burg part of the tutorial Area. Or the High Wall of Lothric. At least to an extent. It's the first map you will probably play on a blind playthrough, although Heide's Tower of Flame is also easily accessible. But I think that the FoFG is a better tutorial area than HToF.

With that being said, I think that the FoFG kinda sucks as a starting area. In a way it's the hardest map of the game, similar how I would name the Undead Burg in DS1 it's hardest map. Not because the enemies are so hard, with large health pools, insane damage and blistering fast movesets, but because your character is at it's weakest without even the proper weapons, spells, items, levels, ect that you want. Since I started as 'Deprived' I had no weapons but the ones I picked up, like the Dagger or the Broken Sword.

So far, nothing out of the ordinary. I like the weak start we have with our character, it makes the power we have at the end even better and more fun. But the Forest of Fallen Fuckwits is just a tad to annoying for a starting area. The basic hollow infantry dudes (and dudines) are easy enough, but the hollow soldiers are a giant pain in the ass. They can attack faster than me with my Longsword and that's a bit bullshit. I had moments where I would get hit and stumbled long enough for them to hit me again. Combine that with a few situations where multiple enemies will aggro on you at the same time and it can get very bullshit and unfair very fast. I think that this map is single handedly responsible for the negative backlash of this game. This map can really give people a very negative impression, so that whenever they get multiple enemies to fight at once they just think "here we go again", at times even before anything actually happens.

That you only start with basically 2 Estus Flasks and only get up to 3 or 4 for most of the map is not helping in that regard either. That the healing from said Estus Flask is a rather slow over time heal over a second or two (instead of instant like in DS1, DS3 or Elden Ring) doesn't help as well. You really need to time your heals.
But on the flip side, you can get here the 'Fire Longsword', which I think is one of the best early game weapons in the game. If you're struggling early on, get this Fire infused Longsword by climbing down the wooden scaffolding, into that one flamey tunnel with a fire lizard at the end, enter a room in the left and open the chest. I used this Fire Longsword until I reached Drangleic and even in the Shrine of Amana it's not to bad.

I do like how the map circles around itself and you can open a few clever shortcuts. One even by blowing up a wall with a bomb. And the Giant Trees are also a neat touch, fallen Giants that now rest as Trees in the country they attacked. Speaking of Giants:

The Last Giant

The Last Giant is a solid tutorial boss in my eyes. He's rather slow and stupid, but there are lore reasons for that since he's been chained up in a cave for centuries before we meet, enrage and slay him. I don't really have much more to say about this boss, because he's just a simple, easy boss I beat on my first attempt without summons. I don't want to write 15 pages per map or boss just to write something. If I only need one sentence, then I only need one sentence (he said, prolonging the 'Last Giant' section like the moron he is ^^).

The Pursuer

In my first proper encounter with the Pursuer I got clapped to the moon and back. I needed like 20-30 attempts until I realized that I'm a complete idiot. I forgot that I'm playing a Dark Souls game and that I could just go somewhere else and come back later. I simply couldn't do the Pursuer with my +3 or +4 Fire Longsword, 3 or 4 Estus Flasks and a handful of Lifegems. Also fiddling between Estus and Lifegems was a pain in the ass for me. I always have to look at the bottom left which item I have switched to when I switch items, so fiddling with my items is always a bit stressful to me during a boss fight. I had the same problem wit the Pendant against Manus in DS1. I solved this by primarily using Estus during fights and only Lifegems when I'm out of combat or out of Estus.
I don't care if this makes this boss to easy, I'll come back later. Then I'll give my full thoughts on the Pursuer as both a boss and mini boss.



Lost Sinner Path


Heide's Tower of Flame

Heide's Tower of Flame is a simple map. The enemies here are rather difficult for a starting character, but rather easy in the grand scheme of things. Until you defeat the Dragonrider boss and the sleeping Heide Knights awake. These Heide Knights are rather difficult to fight, especially early on. The sword wielding ones have a left-right swipe that's just way to fast.

The Dragonrider

I have to admit, I cheesed the Dragonrider. In fact, I ran past all the big knights since I couldn't be asked to fight them with my 4 Estus Flasks. But to be fair, it's just way to easy to cheese the Dragonrider off the map. And to be fair, I fought the Twin Dragonriders in Drangleic Castle alone, as well as the lone Dragonrider in the Shrine of Amana.

After awakening the Heide Knights by killing their boss, I had two choices: No Man's Wharf or the rest of Heide's Tower of Flame to fight Budget Ornstein. I chose No Man's Wharf.
Before moving on, I had to kill Licia because I won't let anyone pretend to be a cleric to gull innocent people. With the Rotunda Key in my hands, I can go to the next map:


No Man's Wharf

No Man's Wharf to me was a rather challenging map. I died a few times, but my thorough and slow way of playing meant that I would despawn a few enemies here and there, especially in the beginning section of the map. I also would return to the Bonfire to level up, upgrade weapons, ect a few times, which is what primarily lead me to despawn some enemies.

I summoned 'Bradley of the Old Guard' to help me and I'm glad I did. Not just for the help, but to see how some of the helpful summoned NPCs behave. Bradley will do a bow after getting summoned, apply lightning to his weapon and even cast a heal spell if you're hurt. He's just an unknown NPC that can only be summoned thrice, but still manages to have a lot of personality. Details like these just make the game better for me, even when on paper it's not much. And Dark Souls 2 is full of little things like these.

I also like that No Man's Wharf is a rather dark map and that it's very helpful to light all the sconces for more light and to see where you've been already. The big light turned on via a Pharros Lockstone is also very helpful, even if it makes ranged Archers spot you easier. Vision works both ways and I love that. There's even enemies that are scared of the light. Again, just little details that give the game just that little bit of added flavour.

Here we meet both Lucatiel and Gavlan. We get to Lucatiel later, but I use this moment to talk about Gavlan. He's one of my favourite NPCs in the game. He shows that a NPC can be memorable and cool, without being deep or having a complex quest line. He's just sitting by himself, drinking his booze and wanting to trade. His rather simple dialogue gives him a rather distinct personality with lines like "Gavlan wheel, Gavlan deal. Gavlan want soul. Many, many soul! Hahahahahaha!" or "Many deal! Many thanks! Haha-haha-hahahahahaha!". His laugh is just awesome. Just hear for yourself: https://youtu.be/FHvudgB-nsY?t=28
He also allows you to sell items and I use that frequently when he permanently stays in the Doors of Pharros. I use the 'Ursa Ryan' approach in that regard: If it's not pinned to the floor -> flog it! This is a good way to get many Souls. Not because you get massive amount of Souls per item, but when you're like me and sell 30 items, weapons, armour pieces and even upgrade materials (like I'm ever going to use one of my 3 Bleed stones), you'll get easily 10-30k Souls in one go. I'm never going to use the spell restoration herbs, so better sell them for Souls! Many, many souls! :D

Before we get to the boss of this area, I want to mention one last thing: Towards the end of the map, you can ring a bell to call in a ship. This ship looks cool, kinda like a ghost ship, and swims into No Man's Wharf on its own in game, not via a cutscene. This is rather cool. You can even ring the bell from afar with an arrow or the like. After getting to the end of the map, you can knock down a bridge, thus creating a shortcut from the beginning of the map right to the end. While the maps in Dark Souls 2 are not interconnected like in Dark Souls 1, the maps in of themselves have still a lot of shortcuts and good map design.
We enter the ship and make our way to the next boss:

The Flexile Sentry

I summoned Lucatiel and Bradley for this. Lucatiel for the story and Bradley because he was so helpful. You also need to summon certain NPCs (Namely Lucatiel and Benhardt) to progress their quest line to get their gear at the end. The boss itself looks very cool: A reptilian monster where one pair of legs has two torsos with heads, arms, hands and weapons. One side uses fast swords, the other slow spiked clubs. All while the boss arena fills slowly with water, making it harder to move as the fight progresses. We three managed to beat the Flexile Sentry before that.
I will repeat for this boss only my point about summons: I don't think that I would've needed more than 3 tires if I fought this boss solo, maybe I could've done it on my first. I also don't think that soloing this boss would've blown me away in terms of quality and fun. So I don't think I missed out on anything when I summoned for this boss. Besides, I'm doing 90% of the damage anyways, but to be fair, 80% of the aggro is on my summons. It is what it is and I don't really care.

With the boss defeated we sail the ship to our next destination: The Lost Bastille!


The Lost Bastille and Sinner's Rise

The Lost Bastille is a cool looking map during a rather atmospheric night. It used to be a prison for the undead until all kinds of unwelcome people got locked up in here.
The Lost Bastille has 3 parts to it:
From No Man's Wharf we enter kinda the 'front' and we can explore most of the map, but we get to a few road blocks here and there.
When you defeat the Pursuer, you can fly via a big bird to an isolated part of the Lost Bastille. You can explore bits of the map, but you encounter a few road blocks again.
The 3rd part is locked behind a Petri-Statue that you need to de-petrify. Behind it you'll find the Ruin Sentinels boss and another large part of this map, including Belfry Lunar and the Bell Gargoyles boss.
To 100% this map, you need to defeat the Pursuer, the Flexile Sentry and use a Fragrant Branch of Yore to free the Petri-Statue. I like this fragmentation to be honest.

On my first visit, I completed all I could reach from the 'entrance' after sailing from No Man's Wharf. I still wanted to wait to fight the Pursuer again and I didn't want to spend any of my Branches on the Petri-Statue blocking the way to the Ruin Sentinels. Luckily, I could reach Straid and his Bonfire as well as Sinner's Rise.

Despite not completing the map, I went on the fight my first Lord Soul Boss:

The Lost Sinner

The Lost Sinner is a straight forward boss. You can light up her boss arena beforehand for more vision. I did that afterwards since I didn't have the key yet. I summoned Lucatiel, whom I met for a 2nd time in the Lost Bastille, for the quest line. I beat the Lost Sinner first try.
The Lost Sinner is the only boss where I think I could have a lot of fun fighting her solo. She's fast and has a few cool moves. That reminds me a bit of Artorias, a DLC boss from DS1 I really like. I'll try fighting her solo if I ever play Dark Souls 2 again.

With my first Lord Soul acquired, it was time for some house keeping. I de-petrified Rosabeth and gave her some clothes. I gave her the strongest gear I had that I wasn't wearing currently, which resulted in me giving her a hollow infantry helmet, elite knight armour and leather gloves and some random leggings. She looks rather dope in my eyes. I only broke my 'rule' of giving her my strongest non-used gear to give her a helmet that showed her face instead of covering it and her head up entirely. I love that you can give her any gear and armour you want. I'll let her remain in the current armour, but I want to give her my full armour set as a parting gift when I'm finished with the game.
I think I did the 2nd half of Heide's Tower of Flame around this time, killing the Dragon with arrows from afar, but ending up with 0 Estus Flasks before the boss fog gate. I don't remember when I did this, but around this time give or take.
I also decided to not fight the Pursuer and I didn't have any branches to use to get access to the Ruin Sentinels and everything thereafter.

Next stop:



Old Iron King Path


The Huntsman's Copse

I don't have much to say about this map. It's a cool looking map that I liked playing on, but nothing that blew me away or frustrated me to no end. Only thing noteworthy was the invasion of Forlorn, which creates the perfect opportunity to talk about the NPC invasions in this game. They're okay til annoying most of the time. Usually they're not that bad, just a little challenge, but sometimes they can just get rather annoying. Especially Forlorn, I swear he has like 5'000 HP and takes an eternity to kill. At this point I simply can't be asked to fight every single Forlon when I don't have to. Maybe one day I'll get around to kill the Forlon in the Huntsman's Copse and the two in the Lost Bastille. If this day is during my current playthrough, I don't know yet.

I basically 100% the entire map, except for the path to the Executioner's Chariot. The big lanky dark dressed torturer fucks on the way handed my ass to me a bit to easily, so I decided to just come back later. This makes now 3 bosses I decided to delay until later and two more that I can't reach because of a Petri-Statue. Luckily, I had no problems with the next boss:

The Skeleton Lords

How much of a hot take is it when I say that this is my favourite boss of the 22 bosses I've fought so far in my playthrough? ^^
I'm not kidding, I really liked fighting the Skeleton Lords and I did it first time while fighting solo. It's probably just that my way of playing any game is rather different compared to how most people play. I'm a big fan of strategy games like Empire Earth, CnC Generals, Civilization or the Endless Games. And even in shooters like Call of Duty, Overwatch or Team Fortress 2 I like playing smartly, since my mechanics aren't always that good. I always like outsmarting my enemies instead of outaiming and outplaying them. And I always like to take my time in any game, play at my own pace, just using my 'Neutral Jing' so to speak.

So when I fight the Skeleton Lords I don't just run in willy nilly while trying to roll through all the attacks while spamming light attacks whenever I can(aka how the toxic git guders in the Dark Souls/FromSoft community want everyone to play). Instead, I take my time. I kill the 3 Skeleton Lords rather easily, which causes many skeletons to spawn, including two Bonewheels. I stand back and observe the Skeletons. I focus the Bonewheels and kill them first. For the rest I go in for an attack or two and then retreat, maybe heal. Then, I wait again, observing, doing nothing until I see a good opportunity to strike. I don't stand there doing nothing for minutes, but I take a few seconds to see where I should strike next.

My way of playing is not for everyone and it's not ideal against every boss. But my slow and methodical approach gets results and it's the way how I like to play. And for my playthrough, that I don't stream, that I don't record, that I don't upload, that I only write about in a review journal a total of 3 people will read, that's completely okay. And the 4 Kings in Dark Souls 1 prove that I can also play rather aggressively.


Harvest Valley

This is the prime poison map of this game and I actually like it. In terms of gameplay, this could be my favourite map so far. Especially since I like how poison works in this game. It has a much higher DPS than in Dark Souls 1 (or 3), but lasts for shorter. The total damage done is still around the same, give or take. But where in Dark Souls 1 you take around 1'000 damage over like 5 minutes, in Dark Souls 2 you take these 1'000 damage over just a minute or two. I prefer the higher DPS over a shorter time. It also has a few interesting interactions with the slow heal of the Estus Flasks and Lifegems, making healing through the poison damage a solid, but resource intensive option. Then there's the 'Drench' mechanic. In Dark Souls 2, when you roll through a poison puddle or pot, you'll get covered/drenched in poison slime that colours your entire character green. This slime fills your poison meter while it slowly drips down until you're completely clean again. Curing poison while being covered in poison slime is pointless since you'll get poisoned again in no time. So depending when and how you're getting poisoned, healing through it via Estus and/or Lifegems is a valid option; while just straight up curing it can be equally valid in others. Compare this to Dark Souls 1 where you can ignore the poison damage 98% of the time and curing it is kinda pointless.

Otherwise, this map wasn't really a problem to me. I could heal through the poison just fine and I could snipe the Desert Sorcerer before the Covetous Demon with my bow. Making the fat fucks run through the poison pots to poison them was really fun to me.
There is this one infamous place where when you enter you have to fight like 5 big fucks with sickles. I managed to do this without many problems believe it or not. Knowing how bs this situation can get was a great benefit to me. I think the main reason why I managed to survive this gauntlet and kill all big fucks is because I ate an Elizabeth Mushroom during it. The Elizabeth Mushrooms are a normal healing item at first glance, but they keep their heal active even after you reach full HP, unlike Estus or Lifegems. This means if I took damage, I healed parts of it back thanks to these Mushrooms. This combined with Estus and me going in for a hit, disengaging, running around and striking again when I see fit, helped me defeating this spambush. Even in these hectic situations I like to play at my own pace and engage at my own terms. I'm not lying when I say that I'm good at using my Neutral Jing. ^^

I also met Lucatiel here, where we see her to start to lose her memories. But she's willing to fight on, as am I. For us both.

Covetous Demon

This is just a meme boss. From start to finish, from lore to gameplay. The Covetous Demon is just a dude that wanted to date a woman, got rejected and started to eat loads and loads until he transformed into the fat slug we see today. All his attacks are slow (but deal high amounts of damage), you can free normal hollows which he will then devour, you can make him ram poison pots to poison him, he even has a rather harmless grab attack where he eats you, but instead of doing high amounts of damage, he only does a little bit of damage while unequipping all your gear (Weapons, Armour, Rings), but his attacks are so slow that you can put all of your gear on safely.

This is a pure meme boss meant to be easy to fight and laugh at. People that get upset at this boss are more pathetic than he is. And that's saying something.


Earthen Peak

Oh hey. A map that I don't really like. Only took me like a fifth of the game and 6 defeated bosses, but we're here. This is not really a bad map, but I didn't really like it that much. It has a few interesting mechanics, still various poison pots and is rather fun to explore, but nothing really blew me away. Burning the windmill to stop the gears and getting rid of the poison is also rather unintuitive.
What I really disliked were the manikins. For me they were a pain in the ass to fight. Primarily because I don't use the lock on camera in melee fights since I hate how it restricts the movement of my character. I seem to miss these enemies more than any other in the game before or since. I know it's because how I play, with KBM and without lock on, but it's a price I'm willing to pay to play like I prefer. Playing with KBM allows me to look around more freely with my camera while exploring and during combat. I seem to manage just fine, even against these manikins. But I can't just go and pretend I had fun or ignore my frustrations because of the way I play. I didn't have much fun on this map, but it was over quickly. And to be fair, every game has it's Demon Ruins, Entanglement or Interloper.

Mytha, the Baneful Queen

I summoned Jester Thomas for this fight for pure shit and giggles. And why wouldn't I summon a pyromancing jester? And to be fair, we clapped her. Despite her health getting increased by the summon, I did crazy damage chunks to her health bar. To imagine that the chunks would've been even greater if I fought her solo.
She looks great, but is easy to fight as long as the poison is drained, with or without summons.


Iron Keep

Who gives a fuck about the elevator from Earthen Peak to Iron Keep? I know I don't! :P

Visually, I think Iron Keep might be my favourite map. I just love the hot lava, the big castle, all the machines and so on. The Alonne Knights also look really great, even when they're a rather difficult enemy type. In terms of gameplay, I think this map is also really interesting.
There's one special thing on this map that I feel I need to point out: You'll get here so many Souls that they'll come out of your ears. Kill all enemies on your way to the Smelter Demon once and you'll have 15k-20k Souls. Enough for me to level up. I ended up 'accidentally' clearing the first and second half of this map of most enemies because I would have enough to level up or buy something cool and I didn't want to go into a boss fight (or do the jump on the side of the molten iron basket) with 10-20k Souls. Since I don't really want to farm Souls, nor respawn enemies with Bonfire Ascetics or via joining the Covenant of Champions, I had to save as many Souls as I can get. It took a while, and I got a bit fatigue at the end, but I got a lot of levels, items and upgrading out of it all while being able to fight the Smelter Demon with low enough Souls for me to risk it. The fun of upgrading my character and weapons outweighed the time investment for me.

Smelter Demon

As you can guess, I did summon Lucatiel for this fight. I died once believe it or not and it took a little while since the Smelter Demon has a lot of HP and high Fire resist (against my Fire Longsword), but me and Lucatiel managed to kill the Smelter Demon on our second attempt. I poisoned him with Mytha's Bent Blade, which did very little damage, but it worked out in the end. I think fighting normally would've worked better.

Belfry Sol detour

Nothing that noteworthy here. I completed Belfry Sol. I summoned the NPC here that uses the 'Hello' Carving when getting summoned, which I found rather funny.

Iron Keep - Part 2

In a nutshell, I liked the fire turrets on this map since they can friendly fire enemies. Since I wanted to get that one item at the side of a huge molten iron basket, I ended up clearing part of the 2nd half too since I didn't want to drop down and risk falling to my death with 20k+ Souls.
For the rest, the map was fine. But the ironclad turtle fuck in the narrow path towards the Old Iron King was really annoying. I think that these ironclad turtle fucks are easily in the top 3 of most annoying enemies I've encountered in the game so far. When they hit you, you're knocked out for like 3 seconds. At times my character got up just to get hit again without a chance to roll. Very bullshit. I'm very happy I don't have to fight these enemies ever again.

In Iron Keep I also found the 'Iron Key' that opens a door in the Forest of Fallen Giants. I don't know if I went there before or after killing the Old Iron King, but the fire lizards there are just a pain in the ass and I killed them all with arrows, got all the items, and I plan to never go there again.

Old Iron King

The Old Iron King is a bit bullshit, but still a boss I liked. The boss arena is rather small and the boss out of reach for the most time because he stands in a large pool of lava. You can only attack him during or after his attacks when his arms/head is reachable. I tried again to poison him with my Bent Blade and Poison Mist, to damage him while he's out of reach. While attacking with my Fire Longsword when he was poisoned.
I think on paper this boss is really good, but in practice he comes off as a bit bullshit as some of his attacks are hard to dodge and sometimes it feels like you don't have enough time to hit him. I summoned Manhunter O'Harrah for this fight, a NPC with a Bow, but he got pushed (or walked into) the Lava sooner or later with 50+% of his HP remaining every single time, so I had to fight a buffed Old Iron King on my own.

But my RNG with this fight was a bit bullshit. You see, there's a corner where I hid in to heal or apply flash sweat. If you stay there to long the OIK will submerge in the lava and pop out near you. You can bait him to pop out in his usual spot, but one time he popped up right at the hiding spot, forced me out, and spammed a ranged fire breath attack, which resulted in me unable to get close to him until I died anywhen. I had literally no chance to get to him unless I rolled perfectly through the fire, which I don't know how hard or easy it is, but I couldn't do it that one time.

One other time the OIK was low on HP, just a few hits away while being poisoned. I was low on HP as well and hid in my corner to heal up and deal the finishing blow. Only for the OIK to hit me with his laser attack through two(!) walls and kill me. And not just barely clipping two walls at the edge. No. Straight through two solid walls, no edges near. Now this is bullshit. Usually when I call something bullshit or a bit to hard or unreasonable, it's usually in the context that I did a mistake and/or it was a bit unlucky and/or I just sucked and couldn't roll in time. But this death is straight up bullshit. Noone can tell me that this attack, that usually is blocked by objects, suddenly goes through two walls. I used this spot to hide from his attack before, so it's not that this attack phases through walls.

On my victory attempt the poison just ran out to leave the OIk with like 10 HP because of course it did. But I managed to get the kill. Now I'm half way done in terms of Lord Souls, but at 9/20 in terms of bosses to beat. Before I went on to Duke's Dear Freja there were a few things I had to take care of first...



The Great Backtrack of 2024

After having killed two Lord Soul bearers and getting so many Souls I could cosplay Big Mom including her powers(Mamamamamama!), I decided it was the perfect time to kill all the bosses I skipped before. This section should be over quickly, since I clapped all the bosses to Jupiter and back, and again, and again. And people say Dark Souls isn't meant to be a power fantasy. Nonsense I say to that! Nonsense!

Budget Ornstein

First on my backtrack list is Budget Ornstein, aka Ornstein we have at Home, aka Old Dragonslayer. I did a lot of damage to him and managed to roll through of most of his attacks. I liked this fight a lot despite me being kinda overpowered and overleveled. I think fights like these prove that I can fight normal bosses normally by rolling through their attacks and hitting them with my sword, all without summons or cheese tactics. And not just easy bosses like Last Giant or Covetous Demon; or gimmick boss fights like the Skeleton Lords.

The Pursuer - Rematch

After getting my ass handed to me by the Pursuer through many, many deaths it was a pleasure to wreck the Pursuer with my overleveled character wielding an overleveled weapon.
I used this opportunity to kill all the baby Pursuers found throughout the game. I killed the one in the Things Betwixt and the four in the Lost Bastille. I have to say, after a while it got a bit old and the Pursuer definitely overstayed it's welcome, despite me liking the idea of this boss pursuing you throughout the game. Especially when the arenas you fight him in a so tiny and he fucks off when you leave them.
In terms of difficulty, is this boss on the higher scale because of his speed. He can be across the map and zit! -> he's at your ass. But he's not really a boss I like fighting. I had more fun fighting the Bell Gargoyles in Dark Souls 1, all while dying more often to them. And I liked fighting Artorias, Kalameet and Manus more, despite them being harder than the Pursuer. He's just not my type of boss. A tad to fast for my liking.

I tried but failed to kill the Pursuer in the Smelter Demon boss arena. I gave up after like 5 tries. At that point, after killing him a total of 6 times within an hour or two, I just didn't want to fight him anymore. I'll fight him again before I fight the endgame trio if I remember. But if I beat the game and realize I didn't kill this Pursuer, I literally couldn't be asked to fight him then. Besides, he only gives 6'000 Souls and a Ring I don't care about. I wiped my balls with more even fighting the Smelter Demon, let alone 4 bosses later.

The Ruin Sentinels

I liked this fight, but only because I knew beforehand how this boss works. If you stay on the small platform you fight only one at first. After the first one is dead, the other two join the fight. I killed the first Ruin Sentinel, then fought the 2nd a bit on the small platform, before dropping down and fighting the 2nd and 3rd at the same time.
While my over tuned damage surely played a large part in my enjoyment and stressless victory against this infamously annoying and difficult boss, I did also benefit from my slow and methodical approach. Again, taking my time, engaging at my own terms for the most part, disengaging when I did a few attacks, and so on. I don't need to repeat this another 15 times. I think the biggest difference between me and the ones I watched fighting these in their Lets Plays is, that I simply didn't care which of these two Sentinels I hit. Often the Lets Players would wait until the right one, that they damaged already, would be near them and isolated, to attack them. But I attacked whoever was in reach, at times even both when I knew I could get away with a hit or two. To me, damage is damage, no matter to whom of the two, and progress to defeating all three.
Slow and steady not only wins races, but also kills Ruin Sentinels, no matter in which order.

After that I explored the remaining 10% or 20% of the Lost Bastille and opened a few closed doors with the Bastille Key.

Belfry Lunar

You get access Belfry Lunar after killing the Ruin Sentinels and spending one Pharros Lockstone. I found this map okay, just like Belfry Sol in Iron Keep. But after the boss, there is a little section where I had a funny interaction. There is a Bonfire and next to it a ladder to a little space filled with like 10 dogs plus an invader that will appear there. Usually this could be a tad annoying, but instead I simply went down, let the invader spawn, climbed up again and used a 'Seed of a Giant' to make the 10 dogs attack the invader. It's the little things that make me smile, like an NPC invader getting clapped by a few dogs. I would kill the remaining dogs, loot the items and be on my way.

Belfry Gargoyles

So far I've been very positive and kind to the bosses I fought so far. Even in bosses where you, yes you reading right know, would think I'd be annoyed and call a boss bad, I gave them a rather positive review by pulling out my slow playstyle, overleveled damage and/or NPC summons out of my ass.
Be content, rejoice, for the time has come for me to call a boss in this game bad. I present you the Bell Gargoyles, a boss I did solo while being overleveled and not really enjoying a single bit about it. While I might over exaggerate a little bit for the joke, I really got frustrated during this boss fight. It felt like the Bell Gargoyles were on my ass all the time and that my character would miss more often than usual.
The gimmick of this fight is, that you start out with 2 Bell Gargoyles, but as you damage the total health bar more will spawn. One each at 90%, 70% and 50% of the health bar. This means that you'll fight 3 Bell Gargoyles at the same time until you've killed three of them. I personally think that the thresholds should be 80%, 60% and 40%, so that when you focus on one Gargoyle only, you'll only ever get a 2v1 until all but one are killed; but if you spread out the damage you'll end up ganked in a 3v1 or even 4v1. But with the current thresholds, a 4v1 is way to easy to achieve.

While this is still not as bad as the Capra Demon, it's close. F tier, E at best. Below Ceaseless Discharge and Bed of Chaos for me.

Executioner's Chariot

This time, the torturers on my way to the boss weren't a problem. I also managed to cheese the red phantom with arrows.

The boss itself is a very interesting boss fight. You have a circular boss arena with a deep pit with a ramp next to it. The Executioner's Chariot runs in this circle, killing friends and foes alike, jumps over the ramp over the pit, and continues his rounds again and again and again. In the arena are a few skeletons that get revived every now and then by necromancers.
You have to kill the skeletons and their necromancers all while hiding from the Chariot in little cavities in the arena. This creates an interesting flow, a push and pull when you can fight and advance and when to hide. That the chariot kills the skeletons in the open field helps while you search the necromancers hiding in their little spots of safety.

Once this is done you have two options: Pull a lever to drop an iron gate and make the Chariot crash so you have to fight the cursed horse pulling it; or kill it slowly but surely with ranged spells or arrows. I used the arrows. At like 20% of health remaining the chariot fell down the hole, the horses grabbed the edge for dear life and I needed just one hit to kill them for good.

I fought the horse on it's own in Drangleic castle. I didn't really miss out by using the arrow strat to be honest.

With my backtrack complete and a total of 14/20 bosses defeated, I made my way to my next Lord Soul:



Duke's Dear Freja Path


Shaded Woods

I did the start of this area earlier until I reached the fork road to Aldia's Keep, Drangleic Castle and the 'Fog Forest'. I can't enter Aldia's Keep and I'm still to frail and pallid to enter Drangleic Castle (despite being able to enter the Shrine of Winter), so I go to the Fog Forest next.

The Fog Forest is a neat area where you can't see more than a meter or two ahead all while invisible enemies lurk in the fog. You can bait them by attacking the trees with faces on them, as they will groan when hit. I also used the 'yearn' spell to distract the phantoms. I managed to get through the Fog Forest with nearly no issues. I managed to kill most of the phantom dudes, I think. I also found Vengarl and did his little quest where I need to kill his body.

Thereafter are the Shaded Ruins, which have a few more phantom dudes, that are clearly visible this time, and laughing pots that curse you. I think that their creepy laugh is really creepy and cool, thus adding to the atmosphere of this map. I found the fang key, freed Ornifex and I found Grandahl for the Darklurker quest. Btw: I will fight Darklurker as the last thing before the endgame trio so I can piss through human effigies until I beat her.

There really isn't much to this map. I got all the items I could reach, while coming back for the 47 Petri-Statues every now and then. I spoke to Tark, a transformed man-scorpion, who tells me to help him end the suffering of his equally transformed and gone mad wife. Who is:

Scorpioness Najka

I summoned Tark for story purposes, I wanted to help him end the suffering of his wife, as he asked me to. On my way to the boss I also found the summon sign of my old buddy Bradley of the Old Guard, whom I saw last in No Man's Wharf. Since I wanted to summon Tark for the plot anyways, summoning an old friend wont hurt either.

I liked her boss fight rather well. She has many cool moves for melee and ranged combat. I want to fight her solo in my next playthrough, but I doubt that it will blow me away. But either way, she's on the higher echelon of Dark Souls 2 bosses so far. At least for me.


Doors of Pharros

The Doors of Pharros are quickly explained. They're a short, optional PvP map primarily for members of the Rat King Covenant where trespassers get send to the world of member of the Rat King Covenant where they can use various traps to kill them. At least if I understand things right. Since I'm playing offline and the PvP community for Dark Souls 2 has been dead for years, it's just a small optional area with a few items and an optional boss.
Gavlan stays here permanently and I go here to sell items to him after every boss. Not just for the Souls, but also to clean up my inventory and Item Box. Whenever I see a screen filled with countless icons of items, weapons, armour n stuff, my brain just gets overwhelmed. I need to clean and clear out my inventory for my own sake. So I put everything into the Item Box what I wont use, so I only have like 10 weapons and 1-3 pieces or armour per slot in my inventory.
This map is neat and as the name implies has loads of Pharros Lockstone Contraptions, most of them trigger traps, but some contain loot. I looked up in the Wiki to get the loot, but I managed to waste two Pharros Lockstones here anyways.
The boss though...

Royal Rat Authority

I thought it wasn't possible, but I found a boss that's worse than the Capra Demon in Dark Souls 1. There's nothing nice to say here. When I look at the Capra Demon as a positive example in comparison, you know you done fucked it up! At least the Capra Demon teaches people enemy prioritization, by rolling through the initial attack, killing the 'further dog', killing the other dog before duelling the Capra Demon that you can even drop attack if you know how. Even the Capra Demon, in my opinion the only bad boss of Dark Souls 1 and the only F Tier boss in that game, has at least one positive thing about it. Two if you count the possible drop attack. Even the Belfry Gargoyles have at least something going for them, as their spawn rate is tied to the % of their big boss health bar remaining and it's possible to make this fight easier by focusing on one Gargoyle at a time and/or by having an absurd high amount of damage (With 1400 HP each it's easy to 2-3 shot singular Gargoyles).

But the Royal Rat Authority has literally nothing going for it. No redeeming qualities. Not even a cool visual design or awesome music (To be fair, so far are the Ruin Sentinels the only boss where I noticed the music in any way while fighting them. I liked it.). I'm serious, this boss looks very ugly, but not in a cool way like Gravelord Nito, the Gaping Dragon, the Skeleton Lords, The Rotten or Duke's Dear Freja. It's just a giant, ugly, brown, sickly looking dog with it's tongue sticking out. In terms of gameplay this boss blows mega hard, but at least they could've given this boss a cool visual design.

Speaking of: Gameplay. It sucks. Hard. Less fun than any boss I have fought in Dark Souls 1 or 2. For starters, at the beginning you need to kill 4 little dog-rat thingeys. That's easy enough and didn't annoy me really. I just used my Fire Longsword and that's it. Sometimes they would inflict Toxic on me, but I didn't really care about that. It's nothing a few Estus Flasks couldn't handle.
But the boss itself, the Royal Rat Authority, is abysmally bad. It's moveset is rather okay, with some attacks easier to dodge and some harder, but the camera is what fucks up this boss fight really bad. I know, I know, I play with KBM and don't use the lock on camera in melee fights, but to be completely honest: I don't think that the lock on camera would help me at all. It would just make my camera to backflips n shit while the boss jumps around. Many times I couldn't even see because the boss was in the way. Also because I have to hits it's legs or head, which is rather hard to do. I often missed and hit the air between it's legs. Sif has similar problems, but that fight is still so much better because she doesn't jump around all the time (and has a cool visual design, lore and music).
This boss just annoyed me with some of it's attacks just being nearly impossible to dodge for me (like the lunge) all while I couldn't hit the boss consistently all while the camera fucked around, showing me the boss close up so I couldn't see my character.

At no point had I fun during this boss fight. Not even slightly. Not even ironically. My best strategy was to hit it's hind legs, but even that was a hassle because the RRA jumped around so much. After like 8 tries I simply snapped. I simply had given up mentally. Despite the essence of my very self being against it, I knew I had no choice. This boss left me no choice. In order to defeat this boss, I had to turn off my brain and play like the toxic git guders want everyone to play: After killing the 4 little rat-dogs I mindlessly spammed rolls until I was at the hind legs of the boss, hit them once or twice, and rolled mindlessly towards it's hind legs again when it jumped away. Repeating this like 10 times or so, I killed this boss. It finally happened, I finally 'got gud'. I finally fought a boss the 'intended' way according to the community on how Dark Souls 1-3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring bosses have to be fought.
I still had no fun during that last attempt. There was no strategy, no tactic, no nothing. Just me mindlessly rolling and getting the necessary attacks in. I can use this 'tactic' to beat any boss in Dark Souls 1, 2, 3, Bloodborne or Elden Ring. There's no skill in this as far as I'm concerned. And literally 0 fun for me. I like thinking of different strategies and tactics, to build my loadout, upgrade my weapons, level my character, and to come up with a plan to defeat any boss. Sometimes it's just raw aggression, like against the 4 Kings. Sometimes it's learning the moves of a boss, like against Artorias or Kalameet(and many others I fought). Sometimes it's to take my time, like against Nito or the Skeleton Lords. Mindlessly rolling and spamming attacks is no fun to me. Just like mindlessly left-clicking my automated hit scan rifle on enemies in Call of Duty is no fun to me (which is why I prefer Team Fortress 2, Overwatch and Paladins).

And all of this, and the boss doesn't even look cool or has cool lore. What a waste of a boss and a waste of time.


Brightstone Cove Tseldora

Tseldora is a map I like. A town cursed by a possessed spider that grew giant in size and flooded the area with it's smaller baby spiders. You can even see a camp of Falconers at the entry of Tseldora to keep the spiders away from the rest of Drangleic. You have cool environmental storytelling here.

I had little problems here because I knew that my Torch scared away the spiders. With a Torch in one hand and my Fire Longsword in the other, I still one-hit the spiders for the most part. The only negative in my eyes is Ornifex. Similar to Quelana in Blighttown, not because the NPC is bad, but because Ornifex is in attack range of multiple enemies. I simply kill all enemies outside before speaking with her and sooner or later I will despawn them. The Bonfire near her house is also a bit of a pain in the ass. As soon you walk a step away from the Bonfire, you get attacked by like 10 spiders that hang on a wall. It's the only time where I actively cleared an area with the intend of despawning the enemies.
I still have my freebie for a boss weapon from Ornifex. So far no boss weapon except Mytha's Bent Blade interested me and when I have to choose between a load of Souls or a boss weapon I'll neither use nor upgrade, I'll choose the Souls.
Here we can also find Pate and Creighton fighting each other, where we have to choose which one to save and which one to kill. I like this little questline.

I also liked both of the bosses here. Let's start with:

Prowling Magnus and Congregation

This is an okay boss. Not really hard, despite you having to fight multiple enemies. My biggest gripe is that this boss doesn't have a Boss Soul. Boss Souls and the weapons they create always have cool lore in their description to give the bosses a bit more flavour (like with the Skeleton Lords for example) and this boss lacks this clearly. It would be cool to have a Boss Souls description like "Hollow or no, Magnus will do anything to protect his congregation." or to get a unique spell and/or staff that could have a description like "Spell created by Saint Magnus to protect his community." or "This Staff was gifted to Magnus by Tseldora. Thanks to it's power Magnus was able to fend off the onslaught of spiders after his best friend went mad.".

Duke's Dear Freja

Next up is the owner of the 3rd Lord Soul we acquire: Duke's Dear Freja. She's a giant, creepy spider that looks really cool and awesome. In her boss room is a small army of spiders, but my Torch kept them away. With that being said, I summoned Ashen Knight Boyd to help me out since I knew the amount of spiders thrown at you. In the end Boyd took care of the little spiders, while I whacked the big one. A bit ironic since I was safe from the spiders thanks to my Torch, but every little helps.
The gimmick of this boss, besides the spider army backing her up, is, that you can only damage Freja when you hit one of her two heads on either side of her large body. I did rather good damage to her despite one handing my Fire Longsword and the summon boosting her health.

We beat her first try and after picking up her Lord Soul I walked into the Lord's Private Chamber to kill Tseldora who's gone hollow in the meantime. Funny little detail: You can see a little cage with a hole in it, as if something burst out. Freja is that 'something' who grew larger in size after consuming many, many Souls from the nearby town.

3 Lord Souls down, one to go. And it's a short trek:



The Rotten Path


The Grave of Saints

This is a short map. Like the Doors of Pharros it's an optional PvP area for the Rat King Covenant. In fact, it's even smaller than Doors of Pharros. Just a few rats, a few items, an easy invader and an easy boss.

Royal Rat Vanguard

I think this is the easiest boss in the game, even easier than the Covetous Demon and that's saying something. It's just a bunch of weak rats that you won't have any problems with killing. After killing 10 rats, a special rat with a big boss health bar will spawn: The Royal Rat Vanguard. Once you kill him, which is easy thanks to his 1'400 HP, all rats run away. Btw, these normal rats give you a few Souls, so killing as many of them as possible can be worth it. Every little helps.
I don't mind this boss. In theory can the rats swarm, stunlock and kill you. But the same can be said about the Pinwheel clones during his boss fight in the Catacombs. But it's an easy victory to get almost free Souls.


The Gutter

I like this map in the same way I like the Catacombs, New Londo, the Depths, Blighttown, the Painted World and the Oolacile Township in Dark Souls 1. It's a dark and creepy map that makes you feel uneasy. It's also a bit confusing, thanks to it's layout and the darkness all around. I said it before and I'll say it again: It is, as it should be. This map in a way is 'bad' on purpose. Like Ravenholm, it's meant to make you uncomfortable and uneasy. It's meant to make you dislike playing on it. It's a map called 'The Gutter'. What did you expect? A lush, green meadow with flowers, rainbows and unicorns? The map fits the name and I think that The Gutter has the best atmosphere in Dark Souls 2. In terms of creepiness it's on the same level, if not better, as Blighttown, the Painted World, the Oolacile Township, The Chasm of the Abyss or New Londo.

This map can be a bit confusing, but you can light sconces to mark spots you've been to and to light up the area. My Torch and 'Cast Light' spell helped me a lot in this area. With a bit of lengthy, thorough exploring I managed to get all the items in this map, light all the sconces and kill both invaders. I even got a bit lost when I backtracked to get Havel's armour set after getting the Forgotten Key in the 'Black Gulch' (which I only started after completing The Gutter).

I like this map, it might be my favourite map of the game so far. The enemies are rather easy, but can catch you off guard, especially when you're one handing your weapon to use your Torch. Even the poison spitting statues aren't as bad in this map.


Black Gulch

This map blows. It might be my least favourite map in the game so far. Only because of the 742 poison spitting statues everywhere. They stagger you if they hit you, while inflicting high amounts of poison build up. If only these statues wouldn't stagger you.
The rest is only slightly annoying, but they all add up with these poison statues. Like the tar pits with the tar creatures in them. Or the two invaders in this little map. I killed both with arrows since I couldn't be asked to fight them among the poison statues. I don't like the double invasion in Iron Keep, and I don't like it here. It's just a pain in the ass.

The two giants in the cave below were easy to cheese with my bow and poison arrows, but was still more annoying and inconvenient than fun.
Meeting Grandahl and Lucatiel, however, is a highlight of this map. Especially Lucatiel since for a moment she even forgot me, despite the adventures and victories we had together. I hope she's fine the next time I meet her. And btw: She survived in all 4 boss fights I summoned her for. What a badass fighter she is!
Speaking of:

The Rotten

Lucatiel and I beat The Rotten rather easily. He's an easy boss to be fair, despite being the owner of a Lord Soul, but his visual design is just top tier. A literal mass of bodies fused and put together. THIS is how you make an ugly boss. Take notes Royal Rat Authority.



Conclusion and closing thoughts

This is as far as I go in this Dark Souls 2 review, despite me already having completed Drangleic Castle and started the Shrine of Amana. This review journal is super long, I wrote it literally over two days, 10 hours just today. I probably have to split this journal up in two parts. So I'm happy that I decided only to review the first half of this game. At least I could write about the maps and bosses in a bit more detail.

I like Dark Souls 2 if that isn't clear. Yes, it has it's problems and it's moments where you think "What were they thinking?" to yourself, but I still like it for what it is. So far I'd rate Dark Souls 1 still higher at a solid 8/10, maybe even 9/10; and Dark Souls 2 a solid 7/10 if I ignore the double click issues.

Part 3: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11103564/

Have a nice day. I will see you up ahead.