The Best & Worst Levels from Every Soulsborne Game

now there are a lot of things the souls born games get priced for and quite rightly so things like the quality of the combat the fascinating lore the memorable anime art designs and animations the legendary soundtracks from the quiet somber tones of Gwynn's theme to The Dramatic orchestral crescendos of ludwick's theme and much much more there's a lot to praise because simply put these games are sick through and through but perhaps one of the most highly praised aspects of the souls born catalog has to be their levels both their design and their Aesthetics and atmosphere now I'm no game design graduate or expert or highlevel gameplay analyst I'm just some random dude from Scotland but regardless I know when I like something and when I don't and I can usually tell you why which brings us to today's list as a follow-up to my previous video in the series where I named my favorite and least favorite bosses in the souls born games I am returned with another list of my favorite and least favorite levels from every game got to get the mandatory Preamble out of the way here I guess but I must stress that these are simply my favorite and least favorite levels from each game I'm not saying any of them are definitively bad and for a couple of my least favorite selections it's just a case of me not liking them quite as much as the other levels rather than me disliking them as for my selection criteria it's pretty simple it's entirely based on how much I personally do or don't enjoy playing through that level level layout pacing difficulty sure all that matters but sometimes an area will just have that certain special something that you can't quite put your finger on that makes you look forward to playing through it before I get started if you like the video and want to see more amusing content in the future and maybe even more of these types of vids if I can think of anything else to rank then maybe you can even subscribe and lastly I should give a fun thank you to my kind patrons for their steadfast support for my channel and with that being said let's kick off with the first game in the series demons' Souls is Demon Souls was the game to kick off a glorious new age an age of tight mechanics and intricate level design which would go on to be iterated and expanded on in the subsequent Souls born games and imitated by all manner of souls likes it certainly seems to be agreed by a lot of souls fans that this first game had perhaps the darkest and most distinctive atmosphere in the series and after playing through the Tower of latria and the valley of defilement you can see what they mean however as notoriously intricate as levels like 31 are not to mention the dizzying verticality of 22 my favorite pick simply has to go to 13 boletaria inner Ward the thing about me is that I'm a godamn sucker for a good Castle type level with infantry and fearsome nights and whatnot and as such the most enjoyable World in Demon Souls for me is always boletaria all four of its levels I actually came close to picking one two the Lord's path due to the sheer spectacle of the stalking Dragon throughout the entire level and the fact that they managed to make the bridge so enjoyable to Traverse through despite being very linear but 13 ended up winning out being much more expansive and challenging having an excellent variety of enemies and featuring that legendary stair section with the three red eyed Knights a feature from soft would go on to recreate in wrick castle in Dark Souls 3 the redey knights in particular go a long way towards making the inner world so special of course you encounter one of these terrifying Sentinels back in the very first level so you've got very little chance of coming out on top in that particular encounter and then you've got the weaker blue-eyed variants also in 1 and 1 two but in 13 the challeng is ramped way the hell up to the point the game doesn't even let you progress past the tower Knight boss room until you've beaten at least one Arch demon elsewhere as if to say dude they're not even going to let you try to beat this level yet yall don't want none of this and the penetrator boss at the end of 1 three is this sweet cherry on the cake being one of the better bosses in the game and taking you one step closer to facing false King alant great level with some super memorable moments and I always look forward to playing through it for least favorite level well I'm not entirely sure if people will take this but I don't like playing through the valley of defilement and in particular 52 the swamp of Sorrow now I'm not saying it's bad and actually the most recent time I played through the level when I was putting together my retrospective of the game I came away with a greater respect for its design Aesthetics and general filthy Vibe however I still just don't like playing through it to the point where the Valley of the fileman is the Archstone I only almost always leave to last on any fresh Demon Souls playthrough most of the level is composed of a thick swamp of literal [ __ ] which heavily restricts Mobility though mercifully Blue Point did add in a new ring to the game which wasn't there in the original which does help with this furthermore you've got these disgusting fly things constantly buzzing around and hounding you the part towards the end before the HS can be confusing as hell to navigate and if you fall off at the wrong part of the level or get pushed off then have fun going through the whole swamp all over again Honestly though lay out aside for a second it's mainly the miserable wet atmosphere of this level that gets to me in a sense I think it was a complete success in that I think from soft then blueo achieved exactly what they set out to achieve here to make the most disgusting hopeless level they could think of and I respect that but the upside is that I don't really enjoy it it's not a bad level it's just one that I don't Vibe with all that much whereas the world of demon souls was fragmented being divided into distinct Arch stones and stages with no real degree of interconnectivity the world of Dark Souls would be much larger and more coherent though mind you there were still disconnected parts of it which were only accessible via a loading screen like the Undead Asylum the DLC stuff the painted world and an orlandoo and the latter location there happens to be my pick for favorite at Dark Souls level I remember back in the early days when I was many hours into Dark Souls but still floundering and struggling and places like the undead Parish The Depths and B Town having a brutally great time sure but also assuming that I had a pretty decent idea of what the game had to offer by this point and then one day whilst looking up something dark souls related on YouTube probably Desperately Seeking tips on some boss that was ruining my day probably the CER demon or should I say the crap Red Demon I remember a thumbnail catching my eye showing some beautiful bright pristine environment with Bridges and elevators and a stunning Castle I thought when the hell do I get to this place that looks awesome and when I eventually did get there after Conquering the death trap dungeon that ascends Fortress turns out it was very much awesome to say the least the game takes an aesthetic shift here feeling so much grander in Scales as you Traverse the very realm and castle of Lord GW and his progeny right off the bat you're faced with these imposing giant Sentinels just standing guard unless approached where upon prepare to be slashed and smitten with halber and shield and then you've got the nearby sealed entrance to the Duke's archives making you wonder what the hell's in there as incredible as an Orondo looks and feels to Traverse through I really do think it's the enemies which make it certainly the aforementioned giant Sentinels but in particular the silver Knights Still Standing guard at various points throughout the the castle and always a sheer pleasure to fight well mostly a pleasure I'm not really a big Parry Enthusiast being kind of crappy at it but when in an orlandoo I can't not bust out my Buckler and start parrying some silver Knights they're slow weighty thrusts and slashes simply demand it I'm not saying that an orando has the tightest level structure with the most satisfying traversal in the game cuz I guess places like the painted world and even the undead bur have it beaten in that regard but the sheer gigantic glory of the location always makes me look forward to getting there and then there's the level's notorious boss fight with orstein and Smo and then the partially secret boss with gindin and let's not forget the sheer pleasure of making the acquaintance of the giant blacksmith may he live a long and fruitful life no but for as golden and glorious as an Orlando is these qualities are inversely matched by L isth which in comparison is playing Goofy and sloppy not to mention being sandwiched in between two of my least favorite bosses in the game the centipede demon and Bed of Chaos a lot of folk talk about how much less tight and Polished the second half of Dark Souls is compared to the first and while I agree with this I don't think the second half is bad it's just not as good as the first but parts of lost isth really are downright bad the single worst feature of the level is surely the ey scotching bright lava but you have to walk to get through the level with the help of the orange CH ring from the previous boss fight and this mechanic sucks the way you constantly take tiny slivers of Chip damage with that same burning animation and sound effect playing all the way it looks and sounds really bad and it's just not fun to play through nothing about traversing through this area feels in any way gratifying if I have to constantly take damage while moving through it the Absurd number of dragon Ares littering the place are responsible for the whole Goofy aspect ECT of the level though I have to confess despite how dumb this enemy is and how sloppy they've been strewn about the place in such excessive number I do kind of like them the way they can jump absurdly high into the air it's kind of terrifying things do get a bit less chaotic further on in the level I guess when you leave the lava behind but even then the game has you fight tons of these utterly uninteresting demon fire Sage statue things though I do have a soft spot for the chaos eaters apparently these things have a zero .3% chance of dropping a red titanite slab 2 though I've never gotten one anyone else also if you're after a decent supply of demon titanite you're going to need to make the journey through the second half of lost isth a whole lot to fight the Titanite demon there which despite how awesome it looks has some of the worst hit boxes in the game I don't hate lost eolith or anything but it is dark souls at its weakest which is why it gets this spot whilst each level in Dark Souls has its own strong identity and presence even the not so great ones I can't quite say the same for Dark Souls 2 for one there are far more levels in this game and to be honest they can just get a bit Bland and uninteresting like huntsman's cops and the Shaded Woods even so there are plenty of good areas here too and even some excellent ones particularly in the three dlc's which are often priced for featuring Big upgrades in level design compared to in the base game then you've got the score of the first sin version of the game which really did change how the levels felt by rearranging item placements and enemy placements those sadly these changes were often not for the better often simply being arbitrary changes rather than actual improvements my pick for favorite Dark Souls 2 level might surprise some people cuz it's not strictly a great level I just really really like it and that level is hd's Tower of flame probably the prettiest level in the game though there are certainly some other stunning ones like the shrine of mana and the dragon Erie not to mention some absolute stinkers like the Shaded Woods and Harvest Valley which I just find unpleasant to look at and play through although it can be accessed very early on directly from magua the Tower of flame is actually an optional area leading directly onto no man's Warf which is itself an optional area which acts as an alternate means of getting to the Lost ble despite how easily accessible it is this can be a very hard area particularly if tackled at too low a level and I think it's meant as some place where you're supposed to nervously Venture forth into get hammered or great sworded by one of these huge old Knights and think hm maybe I'll come back later I do really like the mechanic where the levers arise out of the ground upon defeating the enemies there making more of the level accessible and even decreasing the challenge of the Dragon Rider fight a bit by making the arena less perilous both bosses do play a big part and why I enjoy the Tower of flame because while neither are really very difficult they are enjoyable and anyone who watched my previous video in the series knows that I like fighting bosses one unfortunate aspect however is what the score of the first sin did to my precious precious Tower of flame because getting through here kind of sucks in that version cuz they went and put a big dragon on the platform leading to the old Dragon Rider boss and I still don't really understand how you're supposed to get past this thing without a bow super frustrating to fight furthermore now when you beat one of the two level bosses all the previously dormant hide nights wake up and actively start moving towards you often resulting in a messy unpleasant [ __ ] show of a gameplay experience despite all the confusion that score of the first sin introduced I still love the Tower of flame on some higher level that transcends arguments of clever expansive level layouts I guess I'm just a sucker for a nice view and castles but I'll tell you a level which does not feature many nice views and that's Brightstone Cove selora I have a bit of a weird mental Quirk when it comes to Dark Souls 2 see structurally it has similarities to the first game with the four Great Souls who you need to venture out and defeat except whenever I think about these four major bosses I always struggle to remember one in particular same with the levels leading up to it because they're boring as [ __ ] and I don't like them I'm talking about Brightstone Cove selora which leads to the juke's dear Freya it's just such a blond area with blond enemies and getting through all just so bloody blond and meh when I reach that first part with the falconers and the dumb Piggies I can't help but sigh and think great got to do this level now then there's that horrible vertical section with the magic hobin projectiles and then the spidery bit before the spidery spidery spiders I'm getting bored just talking about this level and even its name sucks Brightstone Co selora and I'm really not a fan of the Shaded Woods level either with those lame out ofpl lying enemies I also considered putting Earth in Peak here due to my detestation for the Headless marionette things there but at least that level made me feel something at least it's still engaged my emotions on to the next game so you know how I mentioned before that I'm partial as hell to a good castle and hey if there's a dring around all the better well I had to have a damn good think about what to put here for Dark Souls I even more than the three other games in this list cuz I really freaking love Dark Souls I and I love lots of its levels especially the DLC ones the ring city is one of the most Darkly emotional locations I've ever explored in a game however with me being a castle freak a castle [ __ ] deep in my heart of hearts I knew what the answer was wrick Castle complete with Fierce infantry fearsome Knights and a good oldfashioned Dragon Bridge hearkening back to the Demon Days of Ure Dark Souls I is the most Moody and apocalyptic of all the souls games being the final game in the series and centering around the futility of continuously linking then relinking the fire all while the World Turns ever more to Ash and I felt these apocalyptic tones especially intensely when I reached loick castle with a bizarre pilgrim butterflies climbing higher Into the Dead red sky while you're set upon by half dead hollowed infantry and even the wared and possessed armor of Dragon Slayer orstein the wrick knights in particular make for some of the toughest Knights In the Dark Souls Trilogy especially the multitude of Lance and great sword wielding ones stalking the stairs leading up to Prince wri's Chambers and then you have the terrifying wind Knights now actually possessing proper wings and with an expanded move set and new weapons there are all manner of Fantastical well-designed and downright beautiful levels in Dark Souls 3 like the whole of the painted world of ariandel and Arch Dragon Peak but the one which sets the standard for me is wrick Castle and I'm also a really big fan of the high wall of Lo which lies just below sadly there is a particular level which in My Mind Falls well below this standard and that's the demon ruins located below the catacombs of carus and accessible via the smoldering like it is of course a call back to the demon ruins of the first Dark Souls which also wasn't really a great level but here it's far worse to the point where it feels rushed and Superfluous fromsoft even pulled a weird move here and put the area boss The Old Demon King at the very start of the level instead of the end and in fact your only real reward for reaching the end of the ruins is to turn off the giant crossbow thing that fires at you whilst you're trying to pick up loot from the lake most of the enemies found in the demon ruins are just taken from other areas too apart from these demon clerics who I consider to be one of the most obnoxious enemies in the game thanks to their Relentless Fireball [ __ ] but other than that be prepared to fight lots of groos basilisks and skeletons all that could be forgiven though if it weren't for how copi and pasted the level feels it's just a load of identical looking corridors and holes and pits and invisible walls and the main point of difficulty when traversing through it really does come from the fact that everything looks the bloody same and this is weird considering how finely tailored so many of the game's other levels feel the demon ruins is pretty much the only area I really don't look forward to On Any Given playthrough to the extent that I sometimes just skip it Al together making a Bel line for the boss and then getting the hell out of there throughout my YouTube um career I've made no secret of of the fact that I consider bloodborne to be the greatest of all Souls born games and as far as I'm concerned one of the greatest ever games period I adore pretty much everything about it and in particular the dark eldrich and Cosmic horror themes of the game do so much to elevate it above the already fascinating lore found in from soft's other games but the levels themselves are where these themes and Horrors are realized as you pass through the dark eie Halls of upper Cathedral Ward of the shrieking Smoky Haze of henwick Chanel lame or the Twisted Landscapes of the Hunter's nightmare everywhere ooes with his thick flavor of blood beasts and Terror and God damn it if bloodborne isn't one of the most delightfully Darkly at spheric games I've ever played I love it as such it was damn hard for me to pick favorites but in the end turns out I'm a bit of a basic [ __ ] cuz I have to give it to Central yanam this introductory level is simply too damn strong for me to not include here and it does everything right structurally the whole area is a dream having a plethora of shortcuts and unlikely connections to other sections of the larger level beyond the actual layout though it's the overwhelming threat and hostility of the place that really does it for me right as you enter you have roaming gangs of villagers on the lookout for beasts and Outsiders despite the fact that they're all half beasts themselves and utterly insane even the m PCS here interactable from behind their incense L doors are just playing mean and clearly not right in the head thankfully there is the soothing Scottish tones of Gilbert who has a far more refined accent than I and is one of the only nice folk left in yaram I sure hope nothing happens to him this starting area is hard too especially for a firsttime player that starting bit with about 15 damn villagers huddled around the Flaming corpse of some large Beast is a proper trial by fire and an excellent introduction to the kind of unforgiving fast-paced challenge found throughout the game and then you've got the sewers complete with totally different enemy types and then there's the optional challenge of the cleric Beast for some extra blood Echoes and insight all leading up to the battle with one of the coolest characters in all of souls born father gascoin bloodborne goes to some wild places later on especially in the dlc's and I came pretty close to putting the research haul as my favorite but Central yanam simply has to win it always Hypes me the hell up for the rest of this awesome game before I tell you my pick for least favorite level let me clarify that I don't think there are any bad levels in bloodborne I like them all and please understand that my pick is simply one that I still do enjoy to some extent but less so compared to all other levels in the game it's old yanum old yanum is technically an optional level same with a surprising number of levels in bloodborne and it's very big with lots to see ranging from the smoldering runs of the lost city at the beginning to the section closer to the church with the B Star Beast awaits populated by shrieking beasts and stalking werewolves there's a lot of cool stuff to see here and it all has its own distinct Ambiance but here's the thing I just don't like playing through it all that much and I don't exactly know why I actually have the same feelings about the undead settlement from Dark Souls I too which is a great area on paper but which just doesn't do it for me when I actually play through it I wish I could tell you exactly why but I can't cuz I don't know maybe it's the whole getting blasted by a damn Gatling gun at the beginning aspect which I'm not a fan of cuz I don't like having to frantically run through areas I like to take my time and pick [ __ ] up but yeah there you have it I don't dislike old theum I'm just not as big a fan of it as the other levels compared to the other games SEO doesn't have quite as many distinct locations but the ones it does have tend to be far more expansive in comparison and of course due to the inclusion of the Shinobi prosthetic grappling hook the feel of the levels differs greatly from every other Souls born title giving the player significantly more space and verticality to work with and there are other unique features here too like Ledges and Tall Grass to facilitate the game's tight satisfying stealth mechanics and although Elden ring would feature a dedicated jump button SEO did it first and then there's the whole swimming aspect too which comes into play quite a bit in levels like Fountain Head Palace and meibo Village speaking of Fountain Head Palace I came very close to choosing it as my favorite cuz it really is one of the most beautiful levels of any fromsoft game absolutely bursting with a Transcendent character and color which is complemented perfectly by a beautiful soundtrack however as lovely as the level is to look at and how good it is to play through I don't really love playing through it and to be honest traversing through parts of it can be a bit of a pain in the ass as such I'm going to do that thing again where I default to picking a castle ashing a castle to be precise the first part of the level begins with an infiltration into the castle through an open window and this is where you really feel like a Shinobi grappling from rooftop to Rooftop taking care of those annoying night jar enemies not to mention that mental kamakazi [ __ ] who comes out of nowhere it's the interior of the castle that I really love though because while there are no armored and Dragons present there's the next best thing Samurai these dudes are so sick I absolutely love their slow deliberate move sets from their ichim mongi overhead strikes to the thrust perilous attacks their General design and the way they slowly Patrol throughout the upper section of the castle just gives them a great presence and always makes me look forward to reaching this level creeping around or grappling up above the ceiling I mean there's really not a whole lot of proper navigation required once inside the the castle but it doesn't matter it's like hid's Tower of flame I just like being here for my worst pick just like was the case with woodborn I don't consider any of seo's areas to actually be bad but there are ones I don't especially look forward to to be honest I'd love to just not choose any entry here but I will choose one I will choose meibo village meibo Village is actually really cool in many ways and has a very creepy backstory even having some similarities to borne with how all the villagers went mad and experienced weird Transformations though in this case it's from drinking the rejuvenating Waters rather than by and bibing the old blood the lead up to the level is very Misty and Ghostly and Atmospheric thick with apparitions monkeys and [ __ ] it's the village itself though that I don't really enjoy playing through all that much and a part of that actually goes back to one of my areas of disdain for old Diana it's cuz you're heavily encouraged to just run past everything you're due to how the villagers simply resurrect after death and in some places enemies even perform these annoying grab attacks at your feet and the result is that whenever I get to this admittedly interesting location I usually just want to run through it grab the treasures on the way and then hit the sculptor's Idol without fighting anything which isn't really how I'd like to engage with the level nonetheless like I said it's not bad just not ideal as far as my own preferences now on to the last game in this series now while SEO changed the levels up a bit with its own distinct gameplay elements Elden ring brought its own changes being the first open world souls born game with distinct regions filled with points of pois of Interest Legacy dungeons minor dungeons field bosses and loads of other stuff but for the purposes of this video I'm only going to be looking at either Legacy dungeons or locations which operate in a similar fashion to it like Kara Manor and Castle Saul Etc the Legacy dungeons really are where the level design is allowed to shine in Elden ring changing up the pace from the more open Landscapes of the lands between and being much higher in quality when compared to the game's many tunnels caves and catacombs I remember enjoying the hell out of my initial wanderings of LM grave and being very impressed at the scale of the world but then I got to Stormville castle and I fell off my chair I just about choose Stormville Castle too cuz as well as being a massive intricate level it's also Dam castle that's my shtick but for a stellar a level as it is there was one just a bit more deserving and how could I not pick it it's lindel Royal Capital right from the outset lindel seeks to enchant with its sheer golden scale the somber soundtrack and the weird but Strangely Beautiful Herald enemies complimenting the soundtrack with their soft piping I'm sure everyone remembers that first moment where you enter the city and take it all in and wonder holy [ __ ] can I actually EXP explore all that well yes you can and that's one of the things that makes Lindell so special it's really big there is loads to find and you can damn well get lost in it and it may not be a castle but there are sure as hell plenty of formidable Knights to fight not to mention a random air tree Avatar that falls out of the sky all through the game up until this point you can see the air tree standing several times higher than everything else distant incandescent and seemingly Untouchable but you get to alter's plateau and all of a sudden it's looking a great deal bigger and a hell of a lot closer and then once you set foot in lale and especially as you climb higher up to the air tree sanctuary and Beyond the tree's true enormity comes into full View and it's also so wonderfully done it's such a subtle yet at the same time blatant measure of the player progress through the first half of the game and I know many players mistakenly thought they might even be coming to the end of the game once getting to Lindale and no wonder when you can consider the sheer scale and quality of the experience here definitely one of the greatest Souls born levels and filled with special moments like climbing up the impossibly large wing of grand Sachs and when you enter into the actual Round Table hold not to mention the emotions that arise when all of this is later crushed and scorched by the player's own actions for worst area well it happens to be a level lying very close to lale itself in fact it lies directly beneath it it's the Subterranean shunning grounds despite how much of landel has fallen to ruin Madness and death since the shattering there's still an undeniable lingering Splendor to it all but none of that Splendor is present down in the shunning grounds being the dark depths where Omens were kept unwanted ogres set to go against the golden order thus having no place amongst normal people and certainly no place in the Royal Capital it all makes sense thematically and hey I love the shunning ground conceptually but what I do not enjoy is actually playing through this level it is dark expansive labyrinthine confusing dangerous and frankly kind of bloody miserable there's actually a lot of importance to this level being where the dong eater can be found hosting two minor dungeons one of which is notorious for [ __ ] with the player's head and there's a boss fight with a projection of Moog Beyond which lies the frenzy flame even so the area is just not very fun for me and I've even be known to get frustrated and turned to a guide for directions on where the hell to go after finding myself hopelessly lost in the pipe system the shunning grounds is a level I always play through because of its importance to the larger game but I never particularly enjoy it certainly not when compared to lale just above other games other Legacy dungeon type areas like the Academy of R lucaria deep root depths or even the lake of rot yeah I kind of like the lake of rot at least it's bright and folks there's my list I know there might have been some weird choices in there and that's cuz for some of the games I just don't really dislike any of their levels but despite that there's always a hierarchy of quality in anyone's mind and I have presented mine please let me know what your picks for favorite and least favorite are down in the comments I really enjoyed reading everyone's lists in the comments from my boss video also please allow me to give a final thank you to my patrons for supporting the channel and on that note I hope you enjoyed the video cheers for watching and cheerio

Channel: CANDLE Type 1a

Views: 179,078

Keywords: Soulsborne levels, dark souls level design, soulsborne level design, soulsborne rankings, soulsborne level rankings, dark souls level ranking, elden ring level ranking, sekiro level ranking, soulsborne list, dark souls level list

Id: cd0r9eTACTE

Length: 31min 35sec (1895 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 12 2023