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Dark Soul 2 Review - Part 3
8 months ago
Hey there! :)
Yesterday (23rd January 2025) I finished Dark Souls 2, so it's time to pick up where I left off in my Dark Souls 2 Review.
Part 1 can be found here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11016255/
Part 2 can be found here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11016257/
Before I start my boss and map recap, I want to go over a few general things again, mainly because stupid me forgot like 20 things to mention and I will forget another 20 things for this very journal.
First of all, many things I wrote in the past two parts still apply here: That Dark Souls 2 is overhated; that the game annoyed me more, much more, than Dark Souls 1; that I yelled more at my screen in DS2 than in DS1; that I dislike the slower, more clunky combat which makes most weapons feel off to me; and that I really dislike all the extra attacks and actions the game makes my character do. That last point is very true, many angry and/or frustrated "Yes, do an extra attack!" where yelled at my screen over the course of my playthrough. Besides the double click, it's the worst aspect of Dark Souls 2 to me. It makes the game feel very clunky and unresponsive and makes the slow pace of the combat and the animations feel even slower.
But I still like Dark Souls 2 as a whole. Many things are great about this game. I love that you have many, many items that you can use. Like spell restoring herbs that I chew on every now and then (when I didn't sell them to Gavlan). One thing I forgot to mention last time are the spices, which let you reduce the INT or Faith requierements of certain spells, miracles and hexes by 1. It's a very neat mechanic that lets people use spells n stuff that technically is out of reach for their level.
I found and used all 17 fragrant branches of yore and I think they're a cool mechanic. Most branches are easy to find with basic exploring. Only 3 are more difficult to get. I also like the Pharros Lockstone Contraptions. The key to them is to simply think before you spend, not every contraption needs to be activated, especially in the Doors of Pharros and the Grave of Saints.
I also liked Lifegems. I didn't really use them in boss fights or during combat because I dislike fiddling with my items while under duress, but I used them out of combat or to save up Estus Flasks for an upcoming boss fight or challenging encounter.
One final thing before I start the recap section: I know that at times I sound overly critical, not just in this journal or my Dark Souls 2 review, but in general with many things. It's just that I don't overlook or ignore it when a game (or movie or show) does something bad or I dislike. I always call things as I see them. Despite what I might sound like during my Dark Souls 2 review, I still liked the game I would give it a solid 7/10.
My Build
I will start my recap with my build, like last time. I literally can't remember when excatly I got what weapon, spell, ect (or the stats to use it), so I'll just go over my build as I finished the game.
At the end I was level 219 and I had a total of 350 deaths through my entire playthrough. It also took a long time, Steam says that I played Dark souls 2 for 139.7 hours. Granted, some of that playtime is me sitting on a bonfire while getting something to drink or reading up on the wiki, but it's still a lot of time compared to the 86.7 hours my first Dark Souls 1 playthrough took, where I equally long sat on the bonfire while doing other stuff for a moment.
The reason my level is so high, is because I used soul items and boss souls like tic tacs while selling most of my everythings to Gavlan.
My final stats were:
35 Vigor (Health)
20 Endurance (Stamina)
47 Vitality (Equip Load)
35 Strength
35 Dex
30 INT
15 Faith
30 Attunement (For excactly 6 spell slots)
25 Adaptability (For a total of 106 agility)
Of course will my 47 levels into Vitality catch the eye of most. Let me explain: While I ended the game on Level 219, I put my last 12 levels into Equip Load just so I could use my 'Guts Greatsword' with my heaviest armor. Especially the past 7 levels into Equip Load where rather pointless since I could already use all my weapons except one with my heaviest armor at 40 Vitality. But I already had over 2'000 HP thanks to my Rings; my damage went hardly up by more levels into Strength, Dex, INT or Faith; and there weren't any more Sorceries or Hexes I wanted to equip. So it was either more levels into Health or Vitality for the final stretch and I'm glad I put them into Equip Load because now I can use all my weapons without having to rejigger my armor or Rings.
As for the rest: I was happy with my health and damage at 35 Vigor, Strength and Dex. 30 INT allowed me to use all the spells I wanted and during the 3rd DLC I leveled Faith up to 15 so I could use Dark Fog instead of Toxic Mist, so I could sack off my Pyromancy Flame and use all my spells with just my Witchtree Branch Staff. 6 Attunement slots were maybe a bit much, and maybe 5 would've been enough, but in the end I was very glad about the extra flexibility.
For most of the game I primarily used these spells: Crystal Magic Weapon, Cast Light, Repair, Souls Greatsword, Soul Spear Barrage, Homing Crystal Soulmass and Toxic Mist. Dark Fog needed two attunement slots, so when I replaced Toxic Mist I also sacked off Homing Crystal Soulmass. At the end I had: Crystal Magic Weapon, Cast Light, Repair, Soul Greatsword, Soul Spear Barrage and Dark Fog.
Crystal Magic Weapon allowed me to shred bosses and tough enemies. But was kinda requiered to keep up with the large health pools in the DLCs. I used this spell for the first time in the first DLC.
Cast Light let me save Torch time, so I had 4 hours and 40 minutes left at the end of my playthrough.
Repair is almost a 'must have' because of the high durability drain in this game. Repair Powder costs 2500 souls I'd rather spend on other things, like Large Titanite Shards.
Souls Greatsword was good to damage/kill multiple enemies at once. I used it more for shit and giggles and less for actual damage.
Soul Spear Barrage is a cool spell whose damage is rather low at the end of the day.
Toxic Mist and Dark Fog helped me kill various enemies all around the game, especially when backtracking or during runbacks to bosses. I also used it as an opener against the one or the other boss here and there. Little sidenote: Dark Fog has a farther casting range than Poison/Toxic Mist, which allowed me to cast it on enemies from further back.
Homing Crystal Soulmass never did that much for me to be honest, but I only started using it during the DLCs, so the damage might look weaker than it actually was.
In terms of Rings, I used:
Chlorantithy Ring (Increased Stamina Recovery)
Third Dragon Ring (Boosts Health, Stamina and Equip Load)
Ring of the Embedded (Boosts Health, Stamina and Equip Load)
Silver Serpent Ring (For more souls)
I think they are very self-explanatory. You get the Ring of the Embedded only in the 3rd DLC. Until then, I used the Stone Ring for more Poise damage. But I rejigged my rings for boss fights, when I managed to think about it.
My main armor was Warlock Mask + rest of Havel's Armor. Depending on my Equip Load I replaced an arm or leg piece with a lower weigth one. Primarily I used the 'Flying Feline Boots' for that in the beginning, but I used parts of the Steel and the Drakeblood Set for this later on.
At the very end I bought Fume Knight's armor, which I think looks really cool. But it still was weaker than Havel's armor, so I only used parts of Raime's set when I needed to Equip Load. But I used the full Fume Knight/Raime set whenever I was out of combat.
I also had the headpiece, arms and chest piece of the Lion Warrior Set which I used with the furry tiger boots as a sort of 'Casual' out of combat outfit.
I'm a bit sad that I kept and upgraded Havel's Armor, because it basically locked me out of any other armor to use. When I have 1000 physical defense and 123 poise with Havel's Set + Warlock Mask compared to 600 Physical Defense and around 50 Poise with Raime's Set + Warlock Mask, part of me just feels bad when I'm not wearing my best stat armor.
We round out this build section with weapons:
When I started the second half, I still used the Fire Longsword I used for most of the game so far.
But in the Shrine of Amana I found the Red Iron Twinblade, which I infused with Fire. This weapon is a ton of fun and very strong. When you two hand, it's initial light attack is a normal slash, but it's follow up is a multi-hit attack where you spin and twirl the Twinblade, which can do a lot of damage when all hits connect, which is easier to do on larger bosses such as dragons. I used this weapon as my main weapon for the rest of the game, only switching to other weapons when I felt I needed a different moveset since the Red Iron Twinblade has a rather slow and longwinded moveset that can easily miss a faster target and lock you in lengthy attack animations. While the multi-hit follow up looks cool and does a lot of damage, you are locked into it's animation for like a second or two until you can do anything else again. Then get an extra attack and you're even more stuck, especially when that extra attack is the multi-hit combo.
Outside of that, I used my Magic Drangleic Sword, my Magic Drakeblood Greatsword and my Magic Greatsword whenever I could get benefit out of them. My Magic Greatsword was very good to kill Crystal Lizards at it's light two hand attack is a nice straigth forward slam that one hits them.
I powerstanced my Drakewing Ultra Greatsowrd with my Drangleic Sword in the 2nd DLC and it was a ton of fun, but drained a LOT of stamina. While I wished that I powerstanced more often in my playthrough, I had more fun and use of just using single weapons twohanded.
I used a Fire infused bow to aggro or kill enemies from afar. I used Poison and Iron Arrows.
I used Fire and Magic infusions on all my weapons.
In terms of Boss Weapons, I got Mytha's Bent Blade in the first half, but I didn't really use it much to be fair.
I got the Drakewing Ultra Greatsword from the Guardian Dragon, that I hardly used.
Then I skipped many, many boss weapons until I got the Loyce Greatsword from Lud's soul, which upgrades with Twinkling Titanite.
My last Boss Weapon was the Ivory King Ultra Greatsword, where I used my last remaining Petrified Dragonbones.
I only had enough upgrade materials for 3 boss weapons, so I had to pick and choose which Boss Weapons I wanted to get since I actually wanted to upgrade and use them. A bit ironic since I hardly used any of the 4 boss weapons I got, while literally never using the Loyce Greatsword or the Ivory King Ultra Greatsword.
Before I get to the map and boss recap, I want to correct a mistake I made in part 2 of my DS2 review. When I wrote about the Royal Rat Authority, I wrote that that boss didn't have a singular redeeming quality without cool visuals, intersting lore or good music. After listening to the RRA's OST online, I have to say that it's actually quite good. Listen for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfpw3BcXCkU
While it's not the most catchy of tunes that will get stuck in your head for 3 weeks, I still like it. It's heavy and threatening and fits the boss in some regard.
I will also say, that after listening to some of the boss themes of Dark Souls 2 on youtube, I liked a few of them. My favourite of the first half is the boss theme of the Skeleton Lords: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phg_XUUozbM
And of course, you can't talk about OST in Dark Souls 2 without mentioning Majula's theme at least once: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeJ-Kscdp4w
It's relaxing and soothing, perfect for the peaceful hub area that you spend so much time in upgrading weapons, leveling up, talking to NPCs, testing out weapons and spells, trying on new armor, ect.
I will show you more pieces of DS2's OST as we progress through the game. While the first half was rather lacking in memorable tracks that got stuck in my head like the ones of DS1, the 2nd half has some really good tracks. And I said it before and I'll say it again: For me bosses are more than just a moveset. Things like lore, build up, visual design and music are also as important as a moveset or it's difficulty. At least to me.
Now on to the first map of the 2nd half of Dark Souls 2:
King Path
Drangleic Castle
Drangleic Castle is a cool looking map. It has constant rain, so you're getting soaked anytime you're outside. This has the effect that lightning does more and fire does less damage. So I had to sack off my Fire Longsword for this map and use my Magic Drangleic Sword instead. This is exactly why I'm upgrading and using multiple weapons and even use multiple infusions and damage types.
This map also has a very cool gimmik: There are several Golems, which need souls to be activated. So you need to kill enemies near these Golems to activate them. I always like it when maps or bosses change up things like that.
You also find Chancellor Wellager here, who sells infinite Repair Powders for 2500 souls each.
Drangleic Castle also has one room that is very emblematic of Dark Souls 2. It's a room where you have a total of 6 doors lined on two walls, that all need to be opened by feeding them souls from nearby killed enemies. There are also two Golems with Torches, that need to be activated to light up the room. On paper it's a very interesting room that uses the Soul-Golem gimmik of Drangleic Castle very well, but there is one gaping flaw: Behind the 6 doors you can find 4 or 5 respawning Ruin Sentinels, that are very tough. This is some serious bullshit. It's not fun by any stretch of the imagination. Either you have 5 Ruin Sentinels that don't respawn, or you have one or two respawning ones. Not 5 that respawn. I have no clue why anyone thought this was a good idea. And it's very emblematic and symbolic of Dark Souls 2 as a whole. Many things are good or have a good idea behind them, only to get ruined by something kinda stupid and kinda bullshit. Iron Keep is a visually stunning map and the Alonne Knights are my favourite normal enemy type, while the map in of itself has even a few cool gimmiks with lava floors, flamethrowers and movable platforms. But then you have the big turtle fucks that are just annoying. You have the Gutter, my favourite map of the first half of the game and easily in the top 5 of my favourite maps in Dark Souls 2, only to follow it up with the Black Gulch, one of the most annoying maps in Dark Souls 2. Or take the Sunken King DLC, which is near perfect in almost all aspects, be it the map, the ambience, the music, the enemies, the bosses; even the Cave of the Dead and the Lair of the Imperfect aren't that bad, they're quite okay actually; only for this DLC to contain the worst boss in Dark Souls 2 in form of Gank Squad. In fact, it's the worst boss in the Dark Souls Franchise and I claim that with full confidence despite not having played a single second of Dark Souls 3 (yet).
Even maps, enemies and bosses that don't have anything wrong with them can get iffy with all the extra attacks, the slow animations, the delays between swings and actions, the slow healing, and so on.
To me, this perfectly explains the divided opinions that people have about Dark Souls 2. Some look at Drangleic Castle and remember the cool visuals, the lore, the interesting Soul Golem gimmik, a cool boss to finish the map with; while others mainly remember a room filled with 4 or 5 respawing Ruin Sentinels and 1.5 gank boss fights.
One final note about this map is the lore. The story of Dark Souls 2 starts to pick up from here. Before, everything was very loose and with very little rhime or reason. Mainly because you can do any of the 5 main paths accessible from Majula in any order you want. But from here on out, the game becomes way more liniar, where you basically only have one path that leads from map to map, from boss to boss, from bonfire to bonfire, with only small diversions. While this limits player choice (at least if you did everything the 4 Lord Souls paths had to offer before entering Drangleic Castle like me), it allows for a more clear and direct way of storytelling. In Drangleic Castle we get some beefy lore. For example, King Vendrick was on the verge of linking the Fire, but then he met his future wife: Nashandra. She told Vendrick about a threat across the sea: the Giants were plotting against him. So Vendrick invaded the Giants, defeated them, and brought many of them back in chains. He later used the souls of the Giants to build his Golems who he used to build Drangleic Castle. But as the Giants crossed the sea to conquer Drangleic, burning for revenge, Vendrick suddenly fled, leaving Nashandra behind, who, according to the lore, didn't show a single emotion when she was informed about it. We also learn that a new kind of peace came over Drangleic with Nashandra, a peace so deep, it was like 'the Dark'. Here we also meet Nashandra, the queen of Drangleic, who tells us to find and kill Vendrick since there is no need for two rulers. But it seems that she wants to test our strength first.
Twin Dragonriders
A rather basic boss, where you have one Dragonrider with a Halbert to fight on the ground and one with a Greatbow on a podium up above. I think it's an okay boss, not very hard. I think it's more a way of Nashandra to test our strength. I will say though, that I actually like the various Draongriders spread across the game. They are elite warriors in the lore, so it makes sense that they protect key things.
After the Twin Dragonriders we just explore Drangleic Castle a bit more until we get to the next boss:
The Looking Glas Knight
The Looking Glas Knight is a cool looking boss. His boss arena is outside in the rain, so Fire weapons are less effective against him. In theory Lightning weapons should be more effective, but the Looking Glas Knight has rather high Lightning Defense. He also has a few Lightning attacks, which hit even harder thanks to the rain. After he is down to half health, the LGK summons an NPC, which can even be a player if played online. I played offline, so I only got a generic NPC, but it's still a cool mechanic.
I summoned Benhardt and Ashen Knight Boyd for this fight. Benhardt because of his quest and Boyd because he was very helpfull against Freja. I will once, and only once, repeat what I wrote in part 2 about summons: I don't care about skill, no matter if mine or other's. I summon NPCs when I feel like it, either for the story, or because a possible summon helped me out before, because I'm struggling with a boss or just for pure shit and giggles. I don't really care. In the first half I summoned for 8 out of the 20 bosses and only twice did I feel it could've been a cool fight solo. This time I summoned for 8 out of the remaining 21 bosses and the Looking Glas Knight is the only one where I think it could've been cool to fight him solo. For all others I think that I didn't really miss out that much. Most bosses in Dark Souls 2 are rather basic in terms of moveset and difficulty, but are elevated by their visuals, music, lore and potential gimmiks. And if I ever play Dark Souls 2 again, I will probably use less summons, if any at all.
After defeating the Looking Glas Knight, I can enter the next map.
Shrine of Amana
The Shrine of Amana is an infamous map that I had rather little trouble playing through thanks to my more slow and methodical playstyle. My bow helped greatly against the spellcasters, while I could melee them easily as well. While I found the melee guardian dudes rather tough, I didn't mind them that much at the end of the day. Once I swapped to my Fire Longsword they became rather easy to be honest. I found here my Red Iron Twinblade, that I used as my primary weapon for the rest of my playthrough.
But what really stands out to me in the Shrine of Amana is it's atmosphere. It's a visually stunning map that not only is beautifull to look at but also to listen to. There are so-called Milfanitos here who sing to make the undead Lizardmen who rest here relax and be at ease. This singing is a highlight of this game. Just listen for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf3XOEgSsXU
This map is yet another example of what I mentioned earlier. Depending on who you are, how you played and what you value in a game; you look back at this map and either remember the beautifull visuals and the relaxing music; or the countless sourcerers you had to rush with your melee weapon while dodgeing their projectiles, the rather tough melee dudes or that you fell one to many times off the edge into the deep water.
I love the enviromental storytelling of the huts in the Shrine of Amana. There are 3 big sections of the map, each having a little hut.
In the first one you meet a Milfanito, who stops singing as you approach her. She tells you who and what she is and what she does, that her singing makes 'the little ones' dance, which soothes and relaxes the Lizardmen resting here. This Milfanito also gives us a 'Smooth and Silky Stone', as it's the only thing she can give us.
In the 2nd section, we hear no singing. Which is why all the Lizardmen have their full aggro range. When we enter the 2nd hut, we see a corpse with loot on it: a Smooth and Silky Stone.
In the 3rd section we can hear singing again, so the Lizardmen are again more docile. When we reach the 3rd hut, after slowly batteling through the many enemies, we see a Milfanito that's beaten, battered and bruised. She vanishes as we talk to her. With the 3rd Milfanito so seriously injured that she died in front of us, where is the singing come from that we heard throughout the 3rd section and that we can still hear?
Demon of Song
The Demon of Song is a very cool and unique looking boss. It's basically some sort of monster that's inside a giant frog. It opens the mouth of the frog to reveal it's face and to move it's arms outside the frog to attack us. I think it's better if I showed you how it lookes like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2woUMsRMJk
Only it's face and arms can be hit while the frog 'armor' is completely immune to damage. This gives this boss fight an interesting flow. When the Demon of Song is inside his 'armor', he's immune to damage, but he also can't attack, and he has a rather lengthy 'opening' animation before he can do any attacks. So it's very safe to heal and retreat during this phase, maybe even use an item or two. I died a few times, mainly because I rused him when he opened his 'armor' to attack him, only to get hit by an attack. When I learned that I need to wait for him to make an attack before I can strike, I killed him with my next try. And it's a lesson that I took with me for any boss going forward: Wait until they attack, then attack them back.
Overall, I liked this fight. It has a unique flow, an interesting gimmik and a cool visual design.
Killing the Demon of Song will also give us the 'Key to the Embedded'. That unlocks a cage at the very top of Drangleic Castle where a Milfanito is held. Being one of the more strange and unusual scenes, this cage has a guy with a strange mask chained upside down to it's door. We open this door by thrusting the 'Key of the Embedded', which is a large and long sword, into a hole of it's mask that seems to be his mouth. By killing him with the key, we open the door and free the Milfanito, who sings for us when we ride the elevator down again.
After the Demon of Song, there is only a bit of Shrine of Amana left. A bonfire and a shrine that we can only enter when we're hollow. Here we can find a 4th Milfanito. There is also a door that's guarded by a Syan Knight. We kill him and take an elevator down to the next map.
Undead Crypt
Sidenote: It's the 17th March 2025, so alomst 2 month later. I wrote the first section until now 2 month ago. The rest 'now'.
As we enter the Undead Crypt, we meet Aldia again. I just noticed that I completely forgot to mention Aldia in Part 2 of my Dark Souls 2 review. He just pops up after you defeat the last 'Great One', which was the Rotten for me. Aldia is a rather cryptical and philosophical character. Some really love him, while others couldn't care less about his yapping. I like him, even when I think that he's not as deep or complex as many others think. What he has said so far can be summed up with 'You've come further than many before you. You're strong. You could become a 'true monarch' (which means 'strong enough to link the First Flame, a pharase used by many NPCs in DS2). Seek Vendrik. We will meet again.'.
Now about the map itsef. I just have to say it: The Undead Crypt is my favourtie map in Dark Souls 2. To me, this map just does everything right that I like about a good map. And we have to start with it's lore, atmosphere and environmental storytelling. The Undead Crypt is, as it's name suggests, the final resting place for undead. Just from the name alone, we can conclude that it's a very sacred place. It makes complete sense that the enemies are rather strong here. Not only is this a lategame area (Literally only 2 more obligatory bossses before the 'Endgame Trio' after this map, not counting the DLC), but also one of the most sacred places in all of Drangleic, maybe even the world of Dark Souls. And it's a very dark place, where light is unwelcome, as it agitates the ones resting here. So, it's atmosphere is very dark and rather tense. It's like we just entered a forbidden place, that we're trespassing on sacred ground. And to be blunt: We are. And then some, since we're defiling graves and plundering the crypt while we're making our way through it. So it's not surprising at all that we encounter heavy resistance and valiant protectors.
And it all translates over into gameplay, which is the best part of it all. For starters, since light is unwelcome in this place, lighting up sconces is a bad idea. There is a sort of 'super sconce' that you can light, which lights up like 10 braziers in the main room. After lighting this 'super sconce', 10 red phantoms appear all over the map, making the map significantly harder. But it fits with the theme: not only are we trespassing, plundering and defiling graves, we light up the place despite us being told not to. So one more line of defense gets activated. These red phantoms are relatively easy to kill and don't respawn, but it still fits with the overall theme and feel of the map.
Another way this translates into gameplay are the Leydia Pyromancers. These blue hooded spirits are the strongest enemy in the Undead Crypt and they spawn from their large tombstones whenever a nearby bell is rang. While you can accidentaly ring the bell yourself, often random undead mobs ring them to call in the Leydia Pyromancers. And this is just awesome. Perfect enviromental storytelling. Maybe a bit of context: These large tombstones, where the Leydia Pyromancers rest, and the bells, to call them, are all (except one) in rooms that are littered with smaller grave stones. And you have to smash said grave stones to progress through these rooms (I wasn't kidding or exaggerate when I said that we're defiling graves ^^). So it's only natural that the undead resting there crawl out of their graves to ring the bell à la "Security! Get over here!" and it makes perfect sense that in these cases the Undead Crypt's strongest line of defense gets activated. These Leydia Pyromancers can cast various strong spells, from Soul Gyser (super buffed Soul Spears), over Chaos Frieballs to even a smaller version of Fire Tempest right below your feet. All alongside the melee weapon that they're wielding. And they keep respawning whenever the nearby bell is rung, no matter how often you kill them. But these aren't as OP as they seem, because when you destroy their large tombstones, they don't respawn. And their tombstones remain destroyed, even if you rest at a bonfire or reload the map. And without these Leydia Pyromancers, almost all sections of the Undead Crypt become very easy.
The only real exception to this is the final stretch before this map's main boss Velstadt, who is protecting Vendrick. There, 4 Leydia Pyromancers spawn at 4 indestructable graves, but you can kill the 3 hollows that ring the bell in that hallway, making the Leydia Pyromancers not respawn after you kill them, or make them not even spawn at all. In this final stretch, there is also a non-respawning Dragonrider, which I don't mind at all. Him and the two Syan Knights fit again perfectly with the theme that Vendrick's/Drangleic's strongest warriors protect it's most valuable treasures, locations and people. In this case King Vendrick himself, who retreated himself into the Undead Crypt.
This type of enviromental storytelling and atmosphere is something that I just really like. For me, it makes the whole experience of this map so much better, because I know excatly why these enemies are attacking me and what I did to make them spawn in the first place. And for context: I like the Undead Crypt more than most maps in Dark Souls 1 as well. I think only Ash Lake beats it out. And there is a possibility that after I'm finished with Dark Souls 3, the Undead Crypt is not only in the top 3 of my favourite maps in the franchise, but maybe even my favourtie 'gameplay' map across all three Dark Souls games. With what I'm written so far, the Undead Crypt is already an S Tier map. But there is one thing that really pushes this map far ahead of most other maps in Dark Souls 2 or 1 for me. And we'll get to that a bit later. But first things first.
Velstadt
First of all: I summoned Agdayne for this fight. He offered me his help when I talked to him in the Undead Crypt earlier. Agdayne is a rather intereting NPC, who sells a few usefull items like Effigies and Elizabeth Mushrooms.
And to be fair: Agdayne wasn't much of a help. In both of my attempts, he died before Velstadt entered Phase 2. So for most of the fight, I fought a buffed Velstadt solo. But my Fire Red Iron Twinlade proved to be very effective once again. At this point it was all but settled that this would become my go to weapon for the rest of the game.
The fight itself was rather fun. Velstadt is a boss fight where I think I could've gotten a lot out of it fighting him solo, but Agdayne died so early, I already kinda did. But it's what comes after Velstadt, that is the true highlight of not only the Undead Crypt, or Dark Souls 2, but of the entire Dark Souls franchise.
King Vendrick
After hearing about King Vendrick all game long, where we hear and see his achievements. Where we're told that he's one of the strongest people around, that he managed to kill the '4 Great Ones' (Like us in DS1 and 2), and almost became a 'true monarch' by almost linking the First Flame. After reading about him and his kingdom, and their power and achievements, in various item descriptions. After all of that and then some, we finaly meet King Vendrick. And he's completely gone hollow. He's so far gone, that he doesn't even attack us, but just walks around aimlessly in circles in the small'ish chamber he retreated himself into. And when we attack him he doesn't even react. This is one of the best, most impactfull and memorable moments in dark Souls 2, and frankly, the franchise.
This twist is what pushes the Undead Crypt so far ahead and above all maps in Dark Souls 2, and even ahead of most maps in Dark Souls 1. Not only do we get a map that's dripping with atmosphere and lore, while having S+ Tier enviromental storytelling, while having one of the better bosses in the game. It all leads up to one of the best twists and reveals in the entire franchise. After all of our hard work to become stronger, face countless challenges and to find Vendrick, we find him as a shadow of himself.
By the way: You can fight Vendrick, and I get to his boss fight later in the review, but at this stage, your attacks basically only do like 2-10 damage and you need to wail on him for like 5 minutes until he starts fighting back, where he'll most likely one-shot you with a single swing.
Near Vendrick, we also find his armor discarded on the floor. On it, we can loot the King's Ring, which allows us to open a few doors. Now whe can enter a few places we couldn't before.
Dragon Path
There are three doors that we can open with the King's Ring.
One of them is in Drangleic Castle and leads us to the Throne of Want. I only open that door after completing all DLCs.
One is in the Forest of Fallen Giants and leads us to yet another fallen Giant that we can't do anything with. Yet.
And the 3rd door leads us to our next map:
Aldia's Keep
There are a lot of enemies and a lot of lore packed into this small but dense map. But before we get to any of it, we meet a familiar NPC: Lucatiel. It's the last time we see her, and since I did her questline by summoning her for all fights, she thanks us for keeping her sane, before she gives us her armor set and her weapon. I also think that her final voice line is rather memorable and impactfull: "My name is Lucatiel. I beg of you, remember my name. For I may not myself.". I think that Lucatiel really encapsulates what it means to turn hollow, to forget who you are and become a mindless husk.
To honor her, I infused her sword with fire and upgraded it to max level. I never really used it, but I kept it anyways. As for her armor, I didn't really want to wear it because of it's low stats, but I also didn't want it to dust in my inventory or item box, but I also didn't want to sell it. So I gave it to Rosabeth and I think it fits her well: https://images.steamusercontent.com.....D8A52128041A7/
I sold Lucatiel's mask to Gavlan and given how it ends up in Dark Souls 3 as 'Lucatiel's Mask', it seems that Gavlan proved to be a true chad and friend and honored my wish to name this hat/mask after her.
Now, on with Aldia's keep. It's packed with enemies and lore, also because it's kinda like a research lab, where Aldia and his goons are making all kinds of experiments and research with and on all kinds of things and creatures. So we have many different types of enemies here, kinda like a bizarre zoo. From giant Basilisks, over Orgres, to Gargoyles, and even a few Mimics. There is one long corridor, where there are many creatures in cages that are hanging from the roof. It's rather dark, but you can light it up with a Pharros Lockstone. The devs were really nice here and put a Parros Lockstone in a nearby room, so you can use one to light things up without to much of a worry. And you can free most of the beats hanging up above by pulling a lever, most of which don't respawn. There are like 4 Ogres here, but I found them easy to cheese by hiding in a room where they can't fit through the doorway, while I shoot them with arrows. It was a good place to get a few thousand souls safely when I wanted to buy or upgrade something, or I was a few thousand souls short of leveling up. I ended up despawning all 4 Ogres at one point.
There are many cool quirks and puzzles here. Like a room of mirrors, where enemies jump out, similiar how the Looking Glas Knight spawns in a NPC for support during his boss fight. There's even a body hanging out of a mirror, where you can loot an item, almost like someone tried to escape out of the mirror, but only made it half way through and died. You can light 4 sconces, to spawn 4 baby Forlorn, that are easy to kill. There's a wall that you can smash by baiting and Ogre. And a few things more.
At the end you have a boss.
Guardian Dragon
The Guardian Dragon is a normal 0815 wyvern, like the one in Heide's Tower of Flame. I think that this fight proves, that I don't give any dragon boss fight an instant S or even A tier, just because they're a dragon. While I prefer full blown dragons over wyverns (FYI: Dragons have 4 legs and wings on their back; while Wyverns have two legs and two wings instead of propoer arms/legs), I still like wyverns a lot if they have a cool design. The Ancient Wyvern in Dark Souls 3 and the various wyverns in Elden Ring prove that point. But this wyvern doesn't look as cool and it's fight is rather meh. It's okay, not really bad, but not really good either. The Guradian Dragon has a few stomps but every now and then it flies into the air for either an airborne attack, or to grab the wall of it's large cage/arena for a fire breath attack. What I found the most annoying, were that the fire breath attacks lasted so long that they hit you for a second time after your character gets up. It's a bit bullshit, especially since it's one of the more common attacks that the Guradian Dragon does.
In terms of Lore, the soul you can get from this boss states the question if this wyvern acted on it's own or if it were under one of Aldia's spells. So there's a bit more to this relatively easy and generic boss than it seems at first glance.
But one question remains: What was this Guardian Dragon guarding?
Dragon Aerie
First of all: No clue how Aerie is pronounced. It's almost a running gag that Let's Players, and at times even Youtubers that make reviews, analyses or retrospectives, don't know how it's pronounced or use a different pronounciation than others. Some pronounce it Ai-ree, some Eh-ree and one person even Ai-er.
This map is yet another perfect example of a typical Dark Souls 2 map. It looks very beautifull, has a cool layout and design, has a few short cuts and you can see past and future sections of the map, which makes it feel more like a real place. It even has a little gimmik where there are dragon/wyvern eggs and if you smash to many of them, the wyverns sleeping nearby will wake up and attack you. And if you don't kill those angry wyverns, they will attack the final rope bridge as you cross it, making you fall to your death. It even has like 11 Crystal Lizards on this map, so you get a LOT of upgrade materials here. But then, you have these corrosive mummies, that belly flop at you, causing a corrosive explosion that shreds through the durability of your Rings and Armor. These enemies are really bullshit, especially the ambush where 3 of them drop out of a little cave above the path you're walking on. I used the repair spell on repeat here and was very glad that I could use my fully upgraded Fire Compositve Bow to one-shot any I could see in the distance.
I ended up killing all three sleeping wyverns because they drop unique loot. Poison Arrows helped me a lot here. I will also say that Forlon invaded me here and I accidentaly woke up a wyvern because of this, which made everything rather bullshit. I get to Forlorn later, but I can already tell you that he overstayed his welcome way to much. He invaded me 10 times at the 26 random places he can invade over the course of my playthrough and I just ended up sick of it. It got real annoying real fast. And yes, I just went to the wiki and counted. The tally is 10/26 for my playthrough and it's way to much in my eyes.
I also got the 'aged feather' here, which is a free home bone since it can be used repeatedly.
Dragon Shrine
At the very first bonfire, we meet Aldia for a 3rd and final time before we meet him again at the very end of the game. But this time, he's way smaller than usual, because the room he appears in is rather tiny. Smalldia doesn't really say much here, only some philosophical stuff that happiness and peace are illusions before asking if giving oneself into these illusions is actually such a bad thing when it gives us a lot of comfort. To really analyze Aldia, I would have to make a rather deep dive into the plot and lore of not just Dark Souls 2, but the entire franchise. And because this journal is already way to long, I just don't do that. I wouldn't be surprised if I had to put the 3 DLCs and the endgame stuff into a 4th part, since the journals on FA do, in fact, have a character limit. This is also why it may seem like I skip and rush through a few things and don't mention evrything, because I don't want this to become a 5, 6 or even 7 part review.
The Dragon Shrine in of itself is a rather short, but cool map. You have a few Dragon Knights, but they don't attack at first. They wait for you to fight the Drake Keepers, which they signal to you with a bow. During this duel of honor, the Dragon Knights don't attack, unless attacked first. And if you win, they're bascially friendly, unless you attack them. But they all will turn hostile and attack you if you run past the Drake Keepers. But luckily, there are only 4 Drake Keepers on the map and it's completely okay to kill them with Poison or Magic.
At the end, you have to duel a Dragon Knight who's powerstancing two Black Dragon Greatsowrds. It's a cool fight after which you're allowed to speak with their leader.
The Ancient Dragon
The Ancient Dragon is a giant, black dragon and I think it's the coolest looking dragon in the Dark Souls franchise. Since I watched two lets plays of Dark Souls 3, I can even say that so far in terms of visuals, I like the Ancient Dragon more than Midir. Just look at him: https://images.steamusercontent.com.....DC2C9E91AE275/
And that's me standing quite far away from him. His feet/claws/talons are bigger than my character.
What can I say? I just prefer the plain and simple design of the Ancient Dragon over Midir's. But both look really cool. And I might change my opinion once I see and fight Midir ingame.
But I'm not fighting him yet. At this point, he just gives me the 'Ashen Mist Heart', which allows me to enter the memories of the withered. We get to more details and lore of the Ancient Dragon when we get to his boss fight. But until then, we need to explore some memories!
Memory Path
The 'Ashen Mist Heart' allows us to enter various memories of various entities. 5 in the base game and one in the DLC for a total of 6. But you're on a time limit. After like 5 or 10 minutes or so, the game kicks you out of the memory. One little fun fact: Forlon invaded me once again when I was backstracking through the Forest of Fallen Giants to get to one of the Fallen Giant Trees to enter their memory. Forlorn making sure that you're not having fun for to long by overstaying his welcome once again.
Let's move on and start the memories with:
Ancient Dragon Memories
You can find this memory by engaging with the dragon corpse found in Duke's Dear Freja's boss arena at the end of Brightstone Cove Tseldora. It's a short, but very atmospheric memory, that seems to portrait a time during or shortly after the war between Gwyn, Nito and the Witch of Izalith, and the dragons. Here, we pick up the Soul of the Ancient Dragon, who, according to it's description, waits at the top of Dragon Shrine. A bit weird that we find the Acient Dragon's soul in a memory, but we roll with it for the time being. Even when it raises a few questions about the Ancient Dragon that we just encountered in game moments ago.
Giant Memories
Yeah, I'm not gonna go over each Giant Memory on it's own. In a nutshell, all 3 Giant Memories send us back to the war between Drangleic and the Giants. We can see a past version of the Forest of the Fallen Giants, where many things are intact that we see broken and/or withered down in current time. Even the Drangleic soliders are human in appearance, compared to the hollows that they are now. These Giant Memories are a highlight of the game, which have a lot of enviromental sotrytelling, especially when you're aware what is were in current and past. You easily have moments in these memories where you go "Ah, that's where we fought the Pursuer.", "I'm at the place across the scafolding.", or "Oh, there's a bonfire here at the present time."
At the end of every Memory, we pick of a Soul of a Giant. With the 3 we got from the memories, we now have a total of 4 (I picked up one in the Black Gulch. Something I forgot to mention in part 2 ^^').
One memory is very special, because it has a boss fight in it.
Giant Lord
You can either summon Drummond, who you meet in another Giant Memory, or Benhardt here. Either one or the other, they exclude each other. I summoned Drummond, thus making it impossible for me to finish Benhardt's quest without using a Bonfire Ascetic.
You fight the Giant Lord on the same elevated wall section that you fight the Pursuer in, just a bit further back. You actually start back where the birds nest and the Fallen Giant Tree are, go forward through the Pursuers future boss arena, where you even see the giant statue head roll over and crush various enemies, and stopping where the pursuers boss arena ends in the present. You fight the Giant Lord at the small area before the Pursuer boss arena, where there are only 3 mobs in the current time. This is the kind of enviromental story telling that the Giant Memories excell in. There are even barrages of fire bombs shot at the top of the wall from ships in the ocean below.
The fight itself is rather easy, especially with Drummond on my side. But the lore is cool because the Giant Lord that we defeat here in the memory, gets locked up below the fort and gets fought and killed by us once again thousands of years later when we fight the Last Giant at the very beginning of the game.
Memory of the King
In the Undead Crypt we can enter Vendrick's memory through the armor discarded on the ground. There, Vendrick gives us a mission: To visit the kingdoms of 3 lost kings and collect their crowns. This means that it's finaly time for the DLCs.
And this is it for now. This is already very long and I'll create a part 4 for the DLCs. You can find it here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11103565/
Yesterday (23rd January 2025) I finished Dark Souls 2, so it's time to pick up where I left off in my Dark Souls 2 Review.
Part 1 can be found here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11016255/
Part 2 can be found here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11016257/
Before I start my boss and map recap, I want to go over a few general things again, mainly because stupid me forgot like 20 things to mention and I will forget another 20 things for this very journal.
First of all, many things I wrote in the past two parts still apply here: That Dark Souls 2 is overhated; that the game annoyed me more, much more, than Dark Souls 1; that I yelled more at my screen in DS2 than in DS1; that I dislike the slower, more clunky combat which makes most weapons feel off to me; and that I really dislike all the extra attacks and actions the game makes my character do. That last point is very true, many angry and/or frustrated "Yes, do an extra attack!" where yelled at my screen over the course of my playthrough. Besides the double click, it's the worst aspect of Dark Souls 2 to me. It makes the game feel very clunky and unresponsive and makes the slow pace of the combat and the animations feel even slower.
But I still like Dark Souls 2 as a whole. Many things are great about this game. I love that you have many, many items that you can use. Like spell restoring herbs that I chew on every now and then (when I didn't sell them to Gavlan). One thing I forgot to mention last time are the spices, which let you reduce the INT or Faith requierements of certain spells, miracles and hexes by 1. It's a very neat mechanic that lets people use spells n stuff that technically is out of reach for their level.
I found and used all 17 fragrant branches of yore and I think they're a cool mechanic. Most branches are easy to find with basic exploring. Only 3 are more difficult to get. I also like the Pharros Lockstone Contraptions. The key to them is to simply think before you spend, not every contraption needs to be activated, especially in the Doors of Pharros and the Grave of Saints.
I also liked Lifegems. I didn't really use them in boss fights or during combat because I dislike fiddling with my items while under duress, but I used them out of combat or to save up Estus Flasks for an upcoming boss fight or challenging encounter.
One final thing before I start the recap section: I know that at times I sound overly critical, not just in this journal or my Dark Souls 2 review, but in general with many things. It's just that I don't overlook or ignore it when a game (or movie or show) does something bad or I dislike. I always call things as I see them. Despite what I might sound like during my Dark Souls 2 review, I still liked the game I would give it a solid 7/10.
My Build
I will start my recap with my build, like last time. I literally can't remember when excatly I got what weapon, spell, ect (or the stats to use it), so I'll just go over my build as I finished the game.
At the end I was level 219 and I had a total of 350 deaths through my entire playthrough. It also took a long time, Steam says that I played Dark souls 2 for 139.7 hours. Granted, some of that playtime is me sitting on a bonfire while getting something to drink or reading up on the wiki, but it's still a lot of time compared to the 86.7 hours my first Dark Souls 1 playthrough took, where I equally long sat on the bonfire while doing other stuff for a moment.
The reason my level is so high, is because I used soul items and boss souls like tic tacs while selling most of my everythings to Gavlan.
My final stats were:
35 Vigor (Health)
20 Endurance (Stamina)
47 Vitality (Equip Load)
35 Strength
35 Dex
30 INT
15 Faith
30 Attunement (For excactly 6 spell slots)
25 Adaptability (For a total of 106 agility)
Of course will my 47 levels into Vitality catch the eye of most. Let me explain: While I ended the game on Level 219, I put my last 12 levels into Equip Load just so I could use my 'Guts Greatsword' with my heaviest armor. Especially the past 7 levels into Equip Load where rather pointless since I could already use all my weapons except one with my heaviest armor at 40 Vitality. But I already had over 2'000 HP thanks to my Rings; my damage went hardly up by more levels into Strength, Dex, INT or Faith; and there weren't any more Sorceries or Hexes I wanted to equip. So it was either more levels into Health or Vitality for the final stretch and I'm glad I put them into Equip Load because now I can use all my weapons without having to rejigger my armor or Rings.
As for the rest: I was happy with my health and damage at 35 Vigor, Strength and Dex. 30 INT allowed me to use all the spells I wanted and during the 3rd DLC I leveled Faith up to 15 so I could use Dark Fog instead of Toxic Mist, so I could sack off my Pyromancy Flame and use all my spells with just my Witchtree Branch Staff. 6 Attunement slots were maybe a bit much, and maybe 5 would've been enough, but in the end I was very glad about the extra flexibility.
For most of the game I primarily used these spells: Crystal Magic Weapon, Cast Light, Repair, Souls Greatsword, Soul Spear Barrage, Homing Crystal Soulmass and Toxic Mist. Dark Fog needed two attunement slots, so when I replaced Toxic Mist I also sacked off Homing Crystal Soulmass. At the end I had: Crystal Magic Weapon, Cast Light, Repair, Soul Greatsword, Soul Spear Barrage and Dark Fog.
Crystal Magic Weapon allowed me to shred bosses and tough enemies. But was kinda requiered to keep up with the large health pools in the DLCs. I used this spell for the first time in the first DLC.
Cast Light let me save Torch time, so I had 4 hours and 40 minutes left at the end of my playthrough.
Repair is almost a 'must have' because of the high durability drain in this game. Repair Powder costs 2500 souls I'd rather spend on other things, like Large Titanite Shards.
Souls Greatsword was good to damage/kill multiple enemies at once. I used it more for shit and giggles and less for actual damage.
Soul Spear Barrage is a cool spell whose damage is rather low at the end of the day.
Toxic Mist and Dark Fog helped me kill various enemies all around the game, especially when backtracking or during runbacks to bosses. I also used it as an opener against the one or the other boss here and there. Little sidenote: Dark Fog has a farther casting range than Poison/Toxic Mist, which allowed me to cast it on enemies from further back.
Homing Crystal Soulmass never did that much for me to be honest, but I only started using it during the DLCs, so the damage might look weaker than it actually was.
In terms of Rings, I used:
Chlorantithy Ring (Increased Stamina Recovery)
Third Dragon Ring (Boosts Health, Stamina and Equip Load)
Ring of the Embedded (Boosts Health, Stamina and Equip Load)
Silver Serpent Ring (For more souls)
I think they are very self-explanatory. You get the Ring of the Embedded only in the 3rd DLC. Until then, I used the Stone Ring for more Poise damage. But I rejigged my rings for boss fights, when I managed to think about it.
My main armor was Warlock Mask + rest of Havel's Armor. Depending on my Equip Load I replaced an arm or leg piece with a lower weigth one. Primarily I used the 'Flying Feline Boots' for that in the beginning, but I used parts of the Steel and the Drakeblood Set for this later on.
At the very end I bought Fume Knight's armor, which I think looks really cool. But it still was weaker than Havel's armor, so I only used parts of Raime's set when I needed to Equip Load. But I used the full Fume Knight/Raime set whenever I was out of combat.
I also had the headpiece, arms and chest piece of the Lion Warrior Set which I used with the furry tiger boots as a sort of 'Casual' out of combat outfit.
I'm a bit sad that I kept and upgraded Havel's Armor, because it basically locked me out of any other armor to use. When I have 1000 physical defense and 123 poise with Havel's Set + Warlock Mask compared to 600 Physical Defense and around 50 Poise with Raime's Set + Warlock Mask, part of me just feels bad when I'm not wearing my best stat armor.
We round out this build section with weapons:
When I started the second half, I still used the Fire Longsword I used for most of the game so far.
But in the Shrine of Amana I found the Red Iron Twinblade, which I infused with Fire. This weapon is a ton of fun and very strong. When you two hand, it's initial light attack is a normal slash, but it's follow up is a multi-hit attack where you spin and twirl the Twinblade, which can do a lot of damage when all hits connect, which is easier to do on larger bosses such as dragons. I used this weapon as my main weapon for the rest of the game, only switching to other weapons when I felt I needed a different moveset since the Red Iron Twinblade has a rather slow and longwinded moveset that can easily miss a faster target and lock you in lengthy attack animations. While the multi-hit follow up looks cool and does a lot of damage, you are locked into it's animation for like a second or two until you can do anything else again. Then get an extra attack and you're even more stuck, especially when that extra attack is the multi-hit combo.
Outside of that, I used my Magic Drangleic Sword, my Magic Drakeblood Greatsword and my Magic Greatsword whenever I could get benefit out of them. My Magic Greatsword was very good to kill Crystal Lizards at it's light two hand attack is a nice straigth forward slam that one hits them.
I powerstanced my Drakewing Ultra Greatsowrd with my Drangleic Sword in the 2nd DLC and it was a ton of fun, but drained a LOT of stamina. While I wished that I powerstanced more often in my playthrough, I had more fun and use of just using single weapons twohanded.
I used a Fire infused bow to aggro or kill enemies from afar. I used Poison and Iron Arrows.
I used Fire and Magic infusions on all my weapons.
In terms of Boss Weapons, I got Mytha's Bent Blade in the first half, but I didn't really use it much to be fair.
I got the Drakewing Ultra Greatsword from the Guardian Dragon, that I hardly used.
Then I skipped many, many boss weapons until I got the Loyce Greatsword from Lud's soul, which upgrades with Twinkling Titanite.
My last Boss Weapon was the Ivory King Ultra Greatsword, where I used my last remaining Petrified Dragonbones.
I only had enough upgrade materials for 3 boss weapons, so I had to pick and choose which Boss Weapons I wanted to get since I actually wanted to upgrade and use them. A bit ironic since I hardly used any of the 4 boss weapons I got, while literally never using the Loyce Greatsword or the Ivory King Ultra Greatsword.
Before I get to the map and boss recap, I want to correct a mistake I made in part 2 of my DS2 review. When I wrote about the Royal Rat Authority, I wrote that that boss didn't have a singular redeeming quality without cool visuals, intersting lore or good music. After listening to the RRA's OST online, I have to say that it's actually quite good. Listen for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfpw3BcXCkU
While it's not the most catchy of tunes that will get stuck in your head for 3 weeks, I still like it. It's heavy and threatening and fits the boss in some regard.
I will also say, that after listening to some of the boss themes of Dark Souls 2 on youtube, I liked a few of them. My favourite of the first half is the boss theme of the Skeleton Lords: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phg_XUUozbM
And of course, you can't talk about OST in Dark Souls 2 without mentioning Majula's theme at least once: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeJ-Kscdp4w
It's relaxing and soothing, perfect for the peaceful hub area that you spend so much time in upgrading weapons, leveling up, talking to NPCs, testing out weapons and spells, trying on new armor, ect.
I will show you more pieces of DS2's OST as we progress through the game. While the first half was rather lacking in memorable tracks that got stuck in my head like the ones of DS1, the 2nd half has some really good tracks. And I said it before and I'll say it again: For me bosses are more than just a moveset. Things like lore, build up, visual design and music are also as important as a moveset or it's difficulty. At least to me.
Now on to the first map of the 2nd half of Dark Souls 2:
King Path
Drangleic Castle
Drangleic Castle is a cool looking map. It has constant rain, so you're getting soaked anytime you're outside. This has the effect that lightning does more and fire does less damage. So I had to sack off my Fire Longsword for this map and use my Magic Drangleic Sword instead. This is exactly why I'm upgrading and using multiple weapons and even use multiple infusions and damage types.
This map also has a very cool gimmik: There are several Golems, which need souls to be activated. So you need to kill enemies near these Golems to activate them. I always like it when maps or bosses change up things like that.
You also find Chancellor Wellager here, who sells infinite Repair Powders for 2500 souls each.
Drangleic Castle also has one room that is very emblematic of Dark Souls 2. It's a room where you have a total of 6 doors lined on two walls, that all need to be opened by feeding them souls from nearby killed enemies. There are also two Golems with Torches, that need to be activated to light up the room. On paper it's a very interesting room that uses the Soul-Golem gimmik of Drangleic Castle very well, but there is one gaping flaw: Behind the 6 doors you can find 4 or 5 respawning Ruin Sentinels, that are very tough. This is some serious bullshit. It's not fun by any stretch of the imagination. Either you have 5 Ruin Sentinels that don't respawn, or you have one or two respawning ones. Not 5 that respawn. I have no clue why anyone thought this was a good idea. And it's very emblematic and symbolic of Dark Souls 2 as a whole. Many things are good or have a good idea behind them, only to get ruined by something kinda stupid and kinda bullshit. Iron Keep is a visually stunning map and the Alonne Knights are my favourite normal enemy type, while the map in of itself has even a few cool gimmiks with lava floors, flamethrowers and movable platforms. But then you have the big turtle fucks that are just annoying. You have the Gutter, my favourite map of the first half of the game and easily in the top 5 of my favourite maps in Dark Souls 2, only to follow it up with the Black Gulch, one of the most annoying maps in Dark Souls 2. Or take the Sunken King DLC, which is near perfect in almost all aspects, be it the map, the ambience, the music, the enemies, the bosses; even the Cave of the Dead and the Lair of the Imperfect aren't that bad, they're quite okay actually; only for this DLC to contain the worst boss in Dark Souls 2 in form of Gank Squad. In fact, it's the worst boss in the Dark Souls Franchise and I claim that with full confidence despite not having played a single second of Dark Souls 3 (yet).
Even maps, enemies and bosses that don't have anything wrong with them can get iffy with all the extra attacks, the slow animations, the delays between swings and actions, the slow healing, and so on.
To me, this perfectly explains the divided opinions that people have about Dark Souls 2. Some look at Drangleic Castle and remember the cool visuals, the lore, the interesting Soul Golem gimmik, a cool boss to finish the map with; while others mainly remember a room filled with 4 or 5 respawing Ruin Sentinels and 1.5 gank boss fights.
One final note about this map is the lore. The story of Dark Souls 2 starts to pick up from here. Before, everything was very loose and with very little rhime or reason. Mainly because you can do any of the 5 main paths accessible from Majula in any order you want. But from here on out, the game becomes way more liniar, where you basically only have one path that leads from map to map, from boss to boss, from bonfire to bonfire, with only small diversions. While this limits player choice (at least if you did everything the 4 Lord Souls paths had to offer before entering Drangleic Castle like me), it allows for a more clear and direct way of storytelling. In Drangleic Castle we get some beefy lore. For example, King Vendrick was on the verge of linking the Fire, but then he met his future wife: Nashandra. She told Vendrick about a threat across the sea: the Giants were plotting against him. So Vendrick invaded the Giants, defeated them, and brought many of them back in chains. He later used the souls of the Giants to build his Golems who he used to build Drangleic Castle. But as the Giants crossed the sea to conquer Drangleic, burning for revenge, Vendrick suddenly fled, leaving Nashandra behind, who, according to the lore, didn't show a single emotion when she was informed about it. We also learn that a new kind of peace came over Drangleic with Nashandra, a peace so deep, it was like 'the Dark'. Here we also meet Nashandra, the queen of Drangleic, who tells us to find and kill Vendrick since there is no need for two rulers. But it seems that she wants to test our strength first.
Twin Dragonriders
A rather basic boss, where you have one Dragonrider with a Halbert to fight on the ground and one with a Greatbow on a podium up above. I think it's an okay boss, not very hard. I think it's more a way of Nashandra to test our strength. I will say though, that I actually like the various Draongriders spread across the game. They are elite warriors in the lore, so it makes sense that they protect key things.
After the Twin Dragonriders we just explore Drangleic Castle a bit more until we get to the next boss:
The Looking Glas Knight
The Looking Glas Knight is a cool looking boss. His boss arena is outside in the rain, so Fire weapons are less effective against him. In theory Lightning weapons should be more effective, but the Looking Glas Knight has rather high Lightning Defense. He also has a few Lightning attacks, which hit even harder thanks to the rain. After he is down to half health, the LGK summons an NPC, which can even be a player if played online. I played offline, so I only got a generic NPC, but it's still a cool mechanic.
I summoned Benhardt and Ashen Knight Boyd for this fight. Benhardt because of his quest and Boyd because he was very helpfull against Freja. I will once, and only once, repeat what I wrote in part 2 about summons: I don't care about skill, no matter if mine or other's. I summon NPCs when I feel like it, either for the story, or because a possible summon helped me out before, because I'm struggling with a boss or just for pure shit and giggles. I don't really care. In the first half I summoned for 8 out of the 20 bosses and only twice did I feel it could've been a cool fight solo. This time I summoned for 8 out of the remaining 21 bosses and the Looking Glas Knight is the only one where I think it could've been cool to fight him solo. For all others I think that I didn't really miss out that much. Most bosses in Dark Souls 2 are rather basic in terms of moveset and difficulty, but are elevated by their visuals, music, lore and potential gimmiks. And if I ever play Dark Souls 2 again, I will probably use less summons, if any at all.
After defeating the Looking Glas Knight, I can enter the next map.
Shrine of Amana
The Shrine of Amana is an infamous map that I had rather little trouble playing through thanks to my more slow and methodical playstyle. My bow helped greatly against the spellcasters, while I could melee them easily as well. While I found the melee guardian dudes rather tough, I didn't mind them that much at the end of the day. Once I swapped to my Fire Longsword they became rather easy to be honest. I found here my Red Iron Twinblade, that I used as my primary weapon for the rest of my playthrough.
But what really stands out to me in the Shrine of Amana is it's atmosphere. It's a visually stunning map that not only is beautifull to look at but also to listen to. There are so-called Milfanitos here who sing to make the undead Lizardmen who rest here relax and be at ease. This singing is a highlight of this game. Just listen for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf3XOEgSsXU
This map is yet another example of what I mentioned earlier. Depending on who you are, how you played and what you value in a game; you look back at this map and either remember the beautifull visuals and the relaxing music; or the countless sourcerers you had to rush with your melee weapon while dodgeing their projectiles, the rather tough melee dudes or that you fell one to many times off the edge into the deep water.
I love the enviromental storytelling of the huts in the Shrine of Amana. There are 3 big sections of the map, each having a little hut.
In the first one you meet a Milfanito, who stops singing as you approach her. She tells you who and what she is and what she does, that her singing makes 'the little ones' dance, which soothes and relaxes the Lizardmen resting here. This Milfanito also gives us a 'Smooth and Silky Stone', as it's the only thing she can give us.
In the 2nd section, we hear no singing. Which is why all the Lizardmen have their full aggro range. When we enter the 2nd hut, we see a corpse with loot on it: a Smooth and Silky Stone.
In the 3rd section we can hear singing again, so the Lizardmen are again more docile. When we reach the 3rd hut, after slowly batteling through the many enemies, we see a Milfanito that's beaten, battered and bruised. She vanishes as we talk to her. With the 3rd Milfanito so seriously injured that she died in front of us, where is the singing come from that we heard throughout the 3rd section and that we can still hear?
Demon of Song
The Demon of Song is a very cool and unique looking boss. It's basically some sort of monster that's inside a giant frog. It opens the mouth of the frog to reveal it's face and to move it's arms outside the frog to attack us. I think it's better if I showed you how it lookes like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2woUMsRMJk
Only it's face and arms can be hit while the frog 'armor' is completely immune to damage. This gives this boss fight an interesting flow. When the Demon of Song is inside his 'armor', he's immune to damage, but he also can't attack, and he has a rather lengthy 'opening' animation before he can do any attacks. So it's very safe to heal and retreat during this phase, maybe even use an item or two. I died a few times, mainly because I rused him when he opened his 'armor' to attack him, only to get hit by an attack. When I learned that I need to wait for him to make an attack before I can strike, I killed him with my next try. And it's a lesson that I took with me for any boss going forward: Wait until they attack, then attack them back.
Overall, I liked this fight. It has a unique flow, an interesting gimmik and a cool visual design.
Killing the Demon of Song will also give us the 'Key to the Embedded'. That unlocks a cage at the very top of Drangleic Castle where a Milfanito is held. Being one of the more strange and unusual scenes, this cage has a guy with a strange mask chained upside down to it's door. We open this door by thrusting the 'Key of the Embedded', which is a large and long sword, into a hole of it's mask that seems to be his mouth. By killing him with the key, we open the door and free the Milfanito, who sings for us when we ride the elevator down again.
After the Demon of Song, there is only a bit of Shrine of Amana left. A bonfire and a shrine that we can only enter when we're hollow. Here we can find a 4th Milfanito. There is also a door that's guarded by a Syan Knight. We kill him and take an elevator down to the next map.
Undead Crypt
Sidenote: It's the 17th March 2025, so alomst 2 month later. I wrote the first section until now 2 month ago. The rest 'now'.
As we enter the Undead Crypt, we meet Aldia again. I just noticed that I completely forgot to mention Aldia in Part 2 of my Dark Souls 2 review. He just pops up after you defeat the last 'Great One', which was the Rotten for me. Aldia is a rather cryptical and philosophical character. Some really love him, while others couldn't care less about his yapping. I like him, even when I think that he's not as deep or complex as many others think. What he has said so far can be summed up with 'You've come further than many before you. You're strong. You could become a 'true monarch' (which means 'strong enough to link the First Flame, a pharase used by many NPCs in DS2). Seek Vendrik. We will meet again.'.
Now about the map itsef. I just have to say it: The Undead Crypt is my favourtie map in Dark Souls 2. To me, this map just does everything right that I like about a good map. And we have to start with it's lore, atmosphere and environmental storytelling. The Undead Crypt is, as it's name suggests, the final resting place for undead. Just from the name alone, we can conclude that it's a very sacred place. It makes complete sense that the enemies are rather strong here. Not only is this a lategame area (Literally only 2 more obligatory bossses before the 'Endgame Trio' after this map, not counting the DLC), but also one of the most sacred places in all of Drangleic, maybe even the world of Dark Souls. And it's a very dark place, where light is unwelcome, as it agitates the ones resting here. So, it's atmosphere is very dark and rather tense. It's like we just entered a forbidden place, that we're trespassing on sacred ground. And to be blunt: We are. And then some, since we're defiling graves and plundering the crypt while we're making our way through it. So it's not surprising at all that we encounter heavy resistance and valiant protectors.
And it all translates over into gameplay, which is the best part of it all. For starters, since light is unwelcome in this place, lighting up sconces is a bad idea. There is a sort of 'super sconce' that you can light, which lights up like 10 braziers in the main room. After lighting this 'super sconce', 10 red phantoms appear all over the map, making the map significantly harder. But it fits with the theme: not only are we trespassing, plundering and defiling graves, we light up the place despite us being told not to. So one more line of defense gets activated. These red phantoms are relatively easy to kill and don't respawn, but it still fits with the overall theme and feel of the map.
Another way this translates into gameplay are the Leydia Pyromancers. These blue hooded spirits are the strongest enemy in the Undead Crypt and they spawn from their large tombstones whenever a nearby bell is rang. While you can accidentaly ring the bell yourself, often random undead mobs ring them to call in the Leydia Pyromancers. And this is just awesome. Perfect enviromental storytelling. Maybe a bit of context: These large tombstones, where the Leydia Pyromancers rest, and the bells, to call them, are all (except one) in rooms that are littered with smaller grave stones. And you have to smash said grave stones to progress through these rooms (I wasn't kidding or exaggerate when I said that we're defiling graves ^^). So it's only natural that the undead resting there crawl out of their graves to ring the bell à la "Security! Get over here!" and it makes perfect sense that in these cases the Undead Crypt's strongest line of defense gets activated. These Leydia Pyromancers can cast various strong spells, from Soul Gyser (super buffed Soul Spears), over Chaos Frieballs to even a smaller version of Fire Tempest right below your feet. All alongside the melee weapon that they're wielding. And they keep respawning whenever the nearby bell is rung, no matter how often you kill them. But these aren't as OP as they seem, because when you destroy their large tombstones, they don't respawn. And their tombstones remain destroyed, even if you rest at a bonfire or reload the map. And without these Leydia Pyromancers, almost all sections of the Undead Crypt become very easy.
The only real exception to this is the final stretch before this map's main boss Velstadt, who is protecting Vendrick. There, 4 Leydia Pyromancers spawn at 4 indestructable graves, but you can kill the 3 hollows that ring the bell in that hallway, making the Leydia Pyromancers not respawn after you kill them, or make them not even spawn at all. In this final stretch, there is also a non-respawning Dragonrider, which I don't mind at all. Him and the two Syan Knights fit again perfectly with the theme that Vendrick's/Drangleic's strongest warriors protect it's most valuable treasures, locations and people. In this case King Vendrick himself, who retreated himself into the Undead Crypt.
This type of enviromental storytelling and atmosphere is something that I just really like. For me, it makes the whole experience of this map so much better, because I know excatly why these enemies are attacking me and what I did to make them spawn in the first place. And for context: I like the Undead Crypt more than most maps in Dark Souls 1 as well. I think only Ash Lake beats it out. And there is a possibility that after I'm finished with Dark Souls 3, the Undead Crypt is not only in the top 3 of my favourite maps in the franchise, but maybe even my favourtie 'gameplay' map across all three Dark Souls games. With what I'm written so far, the Undead Crypt is already an S Tier map. But there is one thing that really pushes this map far ahead of most other maps in Dark Souls 2 or 1 for me. And we'll get to that a bit later. But first things first.
Velstadt
First of all: I summoned Agdayne for this fight. He offered me his help when I talked to him in the Undead Crypt earlier. Agdayne is a rather intereting NPC, who sells a few usefull items like Effigies and Elizabeth Mushrooms.
And to be fair: Agdayne wasn't much of a help. In both of my attempts, he died before Velstadt entered Phase 2. So for most of the fight, I fought a buffed Velstadt solo. But my Fire Red Iron Twinlade proved to be very effective once again. At this point it was all but settled that this would become my go to weapon for the rest of the game.
The fight itself was rather fun. Velstadt is a boss fight where I think I could've gotten a lot out of it fighting him solo, but Agdayne died so early, I already kinda did. But it's what comes after Velstadt, that is the true highlight of not only the Undead Crypt, or Dark Souls 2, but of the entire Dark Souls franchise.
King Vendrick
After hearing about King Vendrick all game long, where we hear and see his achievements. Where we're told that he's one of the strongest people around, that he managed to kill the '4 Great Ones' (Like us in DS1 and 2), and almost became a 'true monarch' by almost linking the First Flame. After reading about him and his kingdom, and their power and achievements, in various item descriptions. After all of that and then some, we finaly meet King Vendrick. And he's completely gone hollow. He's so far gone, that he doesn't even attack us, but just walks around aimlessly in circles in the small'ish chamber he retreated himself into. And when we attack him he doesn't even react. This is one of the best, most impactfull and memorable moments in dark Souls 2, and frankly, the franchise.
This twist is what pushes the Undead Crypt so far ahead and above all maps in Dark Souls 2, and even ahead of most maps in Dark Souls 1. Not only do we get a map that's dripping with atmosphere and lore, while having S+ Tier enviromental storytelling, while having one of the better bosses in the game. It all leads up to one of the best twists and reveals in the entire franchise. After all of our hard work to become stronger, face countless challenges and to find Vendrick, we find him as a shadow of himself.
By the way: You can fight Vendrick, and I get to his boss fight later in the review, but at this stage, your attacks basically only do like 2-10 damage and you need to wail on him for like 5 minutes until he starts fighting back, where he'll most likely one-shot you with a single swing.
Near Vendrick, we also find his armor discarded on the floor. On it, we can loot the King's Ring, which allows us to open a few doors. Now whe can enter a few places we couldn't before.
Dragon Path
There are three doors that we can open with the King's Ring.
One of them is in Drangleic Castle and leads us to the Throne of Want. I only open that door after completing all DLCs.
One is in the Forest of Fallen Giants and leads us to yet another fallen Giant that we can't do anything with. Yet.
And the 3rd door leads us to our next map:
Aldia's Keep
There are a lot of enemies and a lot of lore packed into this small but dense map. But before we get to any of it, we meet a familiar NPC: Lucatiel. It's the last time we see her, and since I did her questline by summoning her for all fights, she thanks us for keeping her sane, before she gives us her armor set and her weapon. I also think that her final voice line is rather memorable and impactfull: "My name is Lucatiel. I beg of you, remember my name. For I may not myself.". I think that Lucatiel really encapsulates what it means to turn hollow, to forget who you are and become a mindless husk.
To honor her, I infused her sword with fire and upgraded it to max level. I never really used it, but I kept it anyways. As for her armor, I didn't really want to wear it because of it's low stats, but I also didn't want it to dust in my inventory or item box, but I also didn't want to sell it. So I gave it to Rosabeth and I think it fits her well: https://images.steamusercontent.com.....D8A52128041A7/
I sold Lucatiel's mask to Gavlan and given how it ends up in Dark Souls 3 as 'Lucatiel's Mask', it seems that Gavlan proved to be a true chad and friend and honored my wish to name this hat/mask after her.
Now, on with Aldia's keep. It's packed with enemies and lore, also because it's kinda like a research lab, where Aldia and his goons are making all kinds of experiments and research with and on all kinds of things and creatures. So we have many different types of enemies here, kinda like a bizarre zoo. From giant Basilisks, over Orgres, to Gargoyles, and even a few Mimics. There is one long corridor, where there are many creatures in cages that are hanging from the roof. It's rather dark, but you can light it up with a Pharros Lockstone. The devs were really nice here and put a Parros Lockstone in a nearby room, so you can use one to light things up without to much of a worry. And you can free most of the beats hanging up above by pulling a lever, most of which don't respawn. There are like 4 Ogres here, but I found them easy to cheese by hiding in a room where they can't fit through the doorway, while I shoot them with arrows. It was a good place to get a few thousand souls safely when I wanted to buy or upgrade something, or I was a few thousand souls short of leveling up. I ended up despawning all 4 Ogres at one point.
There are many cool quirks and puzzles here. Like a room of mirrors, where enemies jump out, similiar how the Looking Glas Knight spawns in a NPC for support during his boss fight. There's even a body hanging out of a mirror, where you can loot an item, almost like someone tried to escape out of the mirror, but only made it half way through and died. You can light 4 sconces, to spawn 4 baby Forlorn, that are easy to kill. There's a wall that you can smash by baiting and Ogre. And a few things more.
At the end you have a boss.
Guardian Dragon
The Guardian Dragon is a normal 0815 wyvern, like the one in Heide's Tower of Flame. I think that this fight proves, that I don't give any dragon boss fight an instant S or even A tier, just because they're a dragon. While I prefer full blown dragons over wyverns (FYI: Dragons have 4 legs and wings on their back; while Wyverns have two legs and two wings instead of propoer arms/legs), I still like wyverns a lot if they have a cool design. The Ancient Wyvern in Dark Souls 3 and the various wyverns in Elden Ring prove that point. But this wyvern doesn't look as cool and it's fight is rather meh. It's okay, not really bad, but not really good either. The Guradian Dragon has a few stomps but every now and then it flies into the air for either an airborne attack, or to grab the wall of it's large cage/arena for a fire breath attack. What I found the most annoying, were that the fire breath attacks lasted so long that they hit you for a second time after your character gets up. It's a bit bullshit, especially since it's one of the more common attacks that the Guradian Dragon does.
In terms of Lore, the soul you can get from this boss states the question if this wyvern acted on it's own or if it were under one of Aldia's spells. So there's a bit more to this relatively easy and generic boss than it seems at first glance.
But one question remains: What was this Guardian Dragon guarding?
Dragon Aerie
First of all: No clue how Aerie is pronounced. It's almost a running gag that Let's Players, and at times even Youtubers that make reviews, analyses or retrospectives, don't know how it's pronounced or use a different pronounciation than others. Some pronounce it Ai-ree, some Eh-ree and one person even Ai-er.
This map is yet another perfect example of a typical Dark Souls 2 map. It looks very beautifull, has a cool layout and design, has a few short cuts and you can see past and future sections of the map, which makes it feel more like a real place. It even has a little gimmik where there are dragon/wyvern eggs and if you smash to many of them, the wyverns sleeping nearby will wake up and attack you. And if you don't kill those angry wyverns, they will attack the final rope bridge as you cross it, making you fall to your death. It even has like 11 Crystal Lizards on this map, so you get a LOT of upgrade materials here. But then, you have these corrosive mummies, that belly flop at you, causing a corrosive explosion that shreds through the durability of your Rings and Armor. These enemies are really bullshit, especially the ambush where 3 of them drop out of a little cave above the path you're walking on. I used the repair spell on repeat here and was very glad that I could use my fully upgraded Fire Compositve Bow to one-shot any I could see in the distance.
I ended up killing all three sleeping wyverns because they drop unique loot. Poison Arrows helped me a lot here. I will also say that Forlon invaded me here and I accidentaly woke up a wyvern because of this, which made everything rather bullshit. I get to Forlorn later, but I can already tell you that he overstayed his welcome way to much. He invaded me 10 times at the 26 random places he can invade over the course of my playthrough and I just ended up sick of it. It got real annoying real fast. And yes, I just went to the wiki and counted. The tally is 10/26 for my playthrough and it's way to much in my eyes.
I also got the 'aged feather' here, which is a free home bone since it can be used repeatedly.
Dragon Shrine
At the very first bonfire, we meet Aldia for a 3rd and final time before we meet him again at the very end of the game. But this time, he's way smaller than usual, because the room he appears in is rather tiny. Smalldia doesn't really say much here, only some philosophical stuff that happiness and peace are illusions before asking if giving oneself into these illusions is actually such a bad thing when it gives us a lot of comfort. To really analyze Aldia, I would have to make a rather deep dive into the plot and lore of not just Dark Souls 2, but the entire franchise. And because this journal is already way to long, I just don't do that. I wouldn't be surprised if I had to put the 3 DLCs and the endgame stuff into a 4th part, since the journals on FA do, in fact, have a character limit. This is also why it may seem like I skip and rush through a few things and don't mention evrything, because I don't want this to become a 5, 6 or even 7 part review.
The Dragon Shrine in of itself is a rather short, but cool map. You have a few Dragon Knights, but they don't attack at first. They wait for you to fight the Drake Keepers, which they signal to you with a bow. During this duel of honor, the Dragon Knights don't attack, unless attacked first. And if you win, they're bascially friendly, unless you attack them. But they all will turn hostile and attack you if you run past the Drake Keepers. But luckily, there are only 4 Drake Keepers on the map and it's completely okay to kill them with Poison or Magic.
At the end, you have to duel a Dragon Knight who's powerstancing two Black Dragon Greatsowrds. It's a cool fight after which you're allowed to speak with their leader.
The Ancient Dragon
The Ancient Dragon is a giant, black dragon and I think it's the coolest looking dragon in the Dark Souls franchise. Since I watched two lets plays of Dark Souls 3, I can even say that so far in terms of visuals, I like the Ancient Dragon more than Midir. Just look at him: https://images.steamusercontent.com.....DC2C9E91AE275/
And that's me standing quite far away from him. His feet/claws/talons are bigger than my character.
What can I say? I just prefer the plain and simple design of the Ancient Dragon over Midir's. But both look really cool. And I might change my opinion once I see and fight Midir ingame.
But I'm not fighting him yet. At this point, he just gives me the 'Ashen Mist Heart', which allows me to enter the memories of the withered. We get to more details and lore of the Ancient Dragon when we get to his boss fight. But until then, we need to explore some memories!
Memory Path
The 'Ashen Mist Heart' allows us to enter various memories of various entities. 5 in the base game and one in the DLC for a total of 6. But you're on a time limit. After like 5 or 10 minutes or so, the game kicks you out of the memory. One little fun fact: Forlon invaded me once again when I was backstracking through the Forest of Fallen Giants to get to one of the Fallen Giant Trees to enter their memory. Forlorn making sure that you're not having fun for to long by overstaying his welcome once again.
Let's move on and start the memories with:
Ancient Dragon Memories
You can find this memory by engaging with the dragon corpse found in Duke's Dear Freja's boss arena at the end of Brightstone Cove Tseldora. It's a short, but very atmospheric memory, that seems to portrait a time during or shortly after the war between Gwyn, Nito and the Witch of Izalith, and the dragons. Here, we pick up the Soul of the Ancient Dragon, who, according to it's description, waits at the top of Dragon Shrine. A bit weird that we find the Acient Dragon's soul in a memory, but we roll with it for the time being. Even when it raises a few questions about the Ancient Dragon that we just encountered in game moments ago.
Giant Memories
Yeah, I'm not gonna go over each Giant Memory on it's own. In a nutshell, all 3 Giant Memories send us back to the war between Drangleic and the Giants. We can see a past version of the Forest of the Fallen Giants, where many things are intact that we see broken and/or withered down in current time. Even the Drangleic soliders are human in appearance, compared to the hollows that they are now. These Giant Memories are a highlight of the game, which have a lot of enviromental sotrytelling, especially when you're aware what is were in current and past. You easily have moments in these memories where you go "Ah, that's where we fought the Pursuer.", "I'm at the place across the scafolding.", or "Oh, there's a bonfire here at the present time."
At the end of every Memory, we pick of a Soul of a Giant. With the 3 we got from the memories, we now have a total of 4 (I picked up one in the Black Gulch. Something I forgot to mention in part 2 ^^').
One memory is very special, because it has a boss fight in it.
Giant Lord
You can either summon Drummond, who you meet in another Giant Memory, or Benhardt here. Either one or the other, they exclude each other. I summoned Drummond, thus making it impossible for me to finish Benhardt's quest without using a Bonfire Ascetic.
You fight the Giant Lord on the same elevated wall section that you fight the Pursuer in, just a bit further back. You actually start back where the birds nest and the Fallen Giant Tree are, go forward through the Pursuers future boss arena, where you even see the giant statue head roll over and crush various enemies, and stopping where the pursuers boss arena ends in the present. You fight the Giant Lord at the small area before the Pursuer boss arena, where there are only 3 mobs in the current time. This is the kind of enviromental story telling that the Giant Memories excell in. There are even barrages of fire bombs shot at the top of the wall from ships in the ocean below.
The fight itself is rather easy, especially with Drummond on my side. But the lore is cool because the Giant Lord that we defeat here in the memory, gets locked up below the fort and gets fought and killed by us once again thousands of years later when we fight the Last Giant at the very beginning of the game.
Memory of the King
In the Undead Crypt we can enter Vendrick's memory through the armor discarded on the ground. There, Vendrick gives us a mission: To visit the kingdoms of 3 lost kings and collect their crowns. This means that it's finaly time for the DLCs.
And this is it for now. This is already very long and I'll create a part 4 for the DLCs. You can find it here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11103565/
