The COMPLETE Dark Souls Series Story Retrospective

dark souls is one of the best series of all time and has one of the most complex yet remarkable narratives i've ever had the pleasure of uncovering it's filled with so many ideas themes and values that breathe life into the series and its various interpretations allow people to add in their own details ultimately making their playthroughs a unique experience so today i want to take some time to talk about the trilogy i want to not only retell the game's main stories but also critique them along the way i'm going to examine why specific parts of the game are so well crafted and how its world design and bosses shape the story around them so with that out of the way thank you for watching and i hope you enjoy dark souls 1 is a fantastic game it's got a wonderful story that would set in motion numerous events that would occur throughout the trilogy but just within the bounds of its own game dark souls 1 has some incredibly deep and rich lore filled with some of the greatest backstories this series has to offer and today i want to discuss why so without further ado let's get started so the opening cinematic of dark souls 1 starts at the gray world one that is filled with giant trees and dragons and while the world stayed like that for a while one day fire was born as for how this fire came to be well it's never explained this is one of the many things we just have to accept the world of dark souls is fantasy and many things just can't be explained it's never mentioned how the first flame was created as it just happened but because the first flame was born disparity came with it life and death heat and cold and light and dark this description is literal since the first flame was created the people of the world felt its warmth and understood what heat was when they walked away from the flame they realized its heat didn't reach them which created the feeling of cold the discovery of fire during the stone age is to this day the greatest discovery known to man and in dark souls this is no different given how unique something like this in the world of dark souls was those who discovered it were obviously attracted to its power four notable people would discover lord souls next to these flames and be given immense power these people were neato izalith gwyn and the pygmy from the intro we can infer that there was a civilization of people that existed during the age of ancients izalith had daughters that were with her when she found her lord's soul and gwyn had his nights with him implying that people did exist during the time of the age of ancients but weren't of much value to the world given how powerful the dragons were eventually nito izalith and gwyn would band together and use their power to overthrow the dragons gwyn used his lightning izalith used her flames and nito used his death and disease they also received help from a seath the scalise a dragon who betrayed his own kind now that the new lords were on top of the food chain the age of ancients was no more and the age of fire had begun this period would last thousands of years until we get to today currently the fire is fading and it needs to be rekindled in order to keep it lit but doing this is not as simple as it sounds you may have noticed i forgot to talk about the pygmy well the pygmy had a unique soul called the dark soul using his soul he created something called humanity he would then share this humanity with his people these dark soul imbued people became known as humans the pygmy is essentially our ancestor gwyn feared this power though and created the dark sign which inadvertently caused the undead curse this isn't explained much in dark souls 1 but it is by far the most important plot in the whole series and while i just wanted to talk about this game for the whole video this needs to be explained or else the rest of the video going forward will make no sense the undead curse the dark sign and the fading of the fire are all linked the dark soul gets more powerful the closer the fire is to fading thus meaning humans should get more powerful over time but gwen screwed humanity twice by rekindling the flame thus removing our chance at power but also by branding humans with the dark sign think of this as a literal wall of fire that prevents the dark soul within men from getting too powerful the dark side only activates when the flame is fading because that is when the dark soul within men starts to grow stronger this dark sign also prevents humans from dying but it also causes them to go undead these fleshy creatures were once undead humans but they have crossed the barrier of no return even though humans are able to revive after death eventually this will cause them to lose their humanity lose their minds and lose their purpose causing them to go hollow these creatures are hollows beings who don't even remember who they are where they are or what they're even doing gwen likes being on top and he fears the day that he will lose his power so he'll do anything he can to prevent that from happening he did this by branding humanity with the dark side but by also rekindling the flame which is known as the first sin see the world is like a set of operations things are born but eventually they'll die but then more things will be born only to die soon after that's just the way the world works but gwynn broke the laws of the world by rekindling the first flame it was meant to be extinguished but due to gwyn wanting to hold on to what he held dear he couldn't dare see it go he sacrificed himself by using himself as kindling for the first flame since he had one of the four original lord souls that came from the first flame it was deemed sufficient enough to be used as fuel unless the gauge of fire continued but as we know it is fading once more the undead curse is back humans are turning hollow and the world is in chaos doesn't this sound like a fantastic story that's because it is this intro and even the game display a sense of desperation within our characters how far are people willing to go to get what they want or keep what they have and while each of their desires is different it always comes out the same dark souls 1 is just the start but the actions of its characters will continue to echo throughout the entire trilogy and we're just getting started after the opening cinematic we get to see the state of the world as it is today or at least the state of this prison we're an undead that is sitting in their cell awaiting the end of the world but one day we're given the key to our cell and are able to leave this person is oscar and he speaks of a prophecy there is an old saying in my family thou who art undead are chosen and thine exodus from the undead asylum maketh pilgrimage to the land of ancient lords when thou wringeth the bell of awakening the fate of the undead thou shalt know this prophecy also happens to be the main objective of the game but it's only the first part the rest will have to discover later the intro of dark souls 1 sets up a new world by showcasing multiple important events in the world's history and also gives us enough information to understand the basic premise of the game while also purposely withholding some of that information to give us a reason to seek out said information one thing we need to consider though is our character's motivations why even bother making the trip to lordran the land of lords well what else is there to do it's the end of the world and you were just given the keys to your cell allowing you to explore the world to your heart's content even if you're convinced that life is doomed in the world as we know it will disappear for good why not make the most out of it have some fun kill some hollows it's a whole lot better than rotting in a cell with our objective laid out to us thanks to oscar we can now set out to lordran and ring the bells technically the first area you're meant to go is the undead burg but one wrong step and you can make it to new londo out of all the souls games dark souls 1 will provide the best blind playthrough as due to its connected world players will go in different directions which in turn will create different experiences new londo is actually a late game area since the enemies here are quite strong and the boss at the end of the level is quite tough but you may stumble upon this area by accident within 5 minutes of arriving this is due in part to dark souls 1's level design which may have the best level design in the whole franchise it's been coined as a metroidvania a genre that started with the game's metroid and castlevania these games have non-linear progression as many areas can be accessed right away but others can't causing the player to go around the map looking for the key then running back to that same location such as this door that leads to havel which can only be found in the dark root basin past the boss the door is found pretty early on in your playthrough but the key is found much later plus you'll also have to remember where that key goes you'll be doing lots of running in this game the highlight of one of my play sessions was going from blighttown to andre because i forgot to ascend my weapon before a boss fight meaning i had to take a three minute walk up to him then a three minute walk back down in future titles this would be remedied by fast travel but dark souls 1 doesn't have fast travel initially and even when you do gain the power of fast travel via the lord vessel it's not the typical fast travel we're familiar with as we're only allowed to travel to specific bonfires these decisions further immerse the player into the world as it's all one connected level and since they're all connected that means you can see certain levels from different places such as blighttown which is visible from firelink shrine so not only was the level design of each area taken into account but also how the levels connected to one another and how this connection would affect other areas regardless of where you end up though whether that be nullando or undead berg the very first enemies you'll come to see are these hollow men like the ones back in the asylum all the undead we see here are humans who have lost their humanity causing them to go hollow and now since we are human we should go hollow too however it's a bit more meta than that hollowing is a bit hard to define as everyone could go hollow for different reasons but the two main ideas seem to stem from constant death or a loss of purpose given that our character is set on ringing the bells he never goes hollow despite being undead as he still has a purpose should the player quit and uninstall the game they would lose their purpose so permanently quitting the game is sort of like hollowing in a sense i don't think everything needs to be explained with lore so this is more than likely just a gameplay mechanic but that's how i've interpreted hollowing on our way to the bells of awakening we'll come across various different locations but sadly there isn't a whole lot of backstory involved in their creation locations like undead burg are just undead settlements and the valley of drakes is just a valley filled with drakes the only exceptions though are ash lake and blighttown blighttown is next to a location called the depths and at the end of the depths is the gaping dragon and while an interesting boss what's more important is the arena we can see water coming from the depths and going into the sewer system which leads to blighttown according to various keys in the game we can piece together that those who previously lived in the undead bird but were banished from the settlement were sent to blighttown as punishment this is reinforced by the giant door that separates the sewer system from the outside world but this water from the sewer is poisonous well in blighttown there's a spell called poison mist and according to its description it seems that enki this egg-bearing individual may have caused this as he was the creator of the poison miss spell it's not fully confirmed that he did this but it's clear that blighttown isn't in the greatest state and it's due to the circumstances surrounding blighttown that the townsfolk seem to have built above the water in hopes of getting away from it this is a common theme in these games of things being built on top of one another as we see blighttown above the swamp the depths of a blighttown and the undead burg above all that the idea of pushing things down and leaving them to fester is also a common theme within this game but not everything is in such a sad state as at the lowest point of lordran we see ash lake a seemingly infinite land filled with archeries that are surrounded by an equally infinite body of water for the purposes of asha lake this seems to be where the dragons used to live for at least one part of it as it's eerily similar to the environment in the intro which we do know was the land of the everlasting dragons we can even find one of the few remaining dragons down here in ash lake he's a part of the dragon covenant in game and from various descriptions it seems like many people worship the dragons and tried to ascend to their level it's unclear though if that worked once the player feels confident in their fighting abilities they can approach the bosses defending the bells of awakening these being the bell gargoyles and chaos witch quailag after bringing both bells we'll see that sen's fortress a place that was originally blocked with a large gate is now open but if we travel back to firelink shrine we'll find a primordial serpent named frampt he claims to be a close friend of gwynns and also claims to know our fate very well then i am pleased to share chosen undead your fate is to succeed the great lord gwyn so that you may link the fire cast away the dark and undo the curse of the undead to this end you must visit anor londo and acquire the lord vessel just like before this second part of the prophecy also happens to be our newest objective but frampt is quite a complex character if certain conditions are met within the game we can also be granted an audience with koth he however tells us a different story your ancestor claimed the dark souls and waited for fire to subside and soon the flames did fade and only dark remained thus began the age of men the age of dark so it wasn't just the fact that the fire was fading that caused gwen to rekindle it the flame actually went out furthermore despite being the same species both frampt and coth have different views on the world frant wants to keep the age of fire going but koth wants to usher in an age of darkness the question is who do we trust well that's up to you as these are the two endings of the game extinguish the flame or rekindle it the choice is yours what is important to note though is their motivations why are they doing this why are they against each other well we still don't know and it's been a widely debated topic that hasn't been given a proper answer yet regardless i don't think you should trust any of them frampt claims that the undead curse will be cured if we link the flame but this isn't correct as we'll see in dark souls 2 and 3 the curse is still present frampt and koth are like politicians they say what needs to be said but never elaborate by technicality the undead curse will be cured when we link the flame as we know the dark side only appears when fire fades and if it's not fading then the curse of the dark sign is gone which means the curse goes with it but it will eventually come back things are meant to run their course so over time the fire will fade again and the curse will come back just not in our character's lifetime frampt whether intentional or not is leading the player to believe that the curse will disappear permanently when indeed it only just disappears for a few thousand years but koth is also lying as he isn't fully explaining what this age of darkness entails and as we'll see koth isn't exactly the nicest person in the soul's universe i've always seen these two as immortal beings ones that are ageless and due to this when the time comes they like to move the pieces a bit and see what happens koth and frampt are basically playing a long game of chess but without the stakes regardless of who wins they both continue to live one just managed to convince the chosen undead more so why not cause a bit of chaos a lie or two here wouldn't hurt anybody as it's just extra pieces on the board to them to this day we still don't know what they really want from us and whether their goals they conveyed to us were actually genuine my interpretation of these could be wildly incorrect but that's the beauty of these games they allow you to shape your own story and create your own adventure and in my story i don't trust these two regardless of who you believe the one thing they agree on is that we need the lord vessel thus we need to get to anor londo to get there we'll need to pass through sen's fortress a place filled with deadly traps and is easily the most infuriating area in the whole game the fortress is also used as a sort of trial as this leads us to anor londo but many people have tried and failed to get there this is of course due to the numerous traps throughout the fortress and the iron golem at the top although he was surprisingly the easiest part of the fortress once the golem is defeated we are then grabbed by these demons and taken to anor londo [Music] it's hard to forget your first time in anor londo nothing up until this point has been more extravagant and beautiful looking than this place and that's what makes it so memorable in a world devoid of beauty and color there's this incredible place that just exists but it's on the other side of the wall but something is off it feels empty like we showed up late to a party and in a more metaphorical and literal sense we have this place is gorgeous but if you'll excuse the pun it's also quite hollow lots of your time in anor londo is spent walking but if you manage to make it past these giants and exploit the ai of these silver knights then you'll make it to the climactic fight of ornstein and smo ons is undoubtedly my favorite fight in dark souls 1. the balance of these two is unmatched as orenstein is a quick nimble fighter that can go halfway across the arena just to hit you but his damage is nowhere near as staggering as the force that is smo where as ornstein instills fear from his speed smo's fear comes from his power ornstein at the beginning of the fight is more or less a pushover he does deal decent damage but it's not enough to warrant a healing item but no amount of damage resistance especially this early on could protect you from smoe's hammer and one hit from this hammer can make orenstein seem a lot more threatening their power grows from the other's presence as the more ornstein chips at your health the closer you are to being within one shot range of smoke and if smoke hits you once well there's nothing that can compare to that level of stress they feed off each other in such a balanced way in fact they actually feed on each other as whoever falls first becomes the power source for the other their health also goes back to full so it's never about dwindling them down over time it's committing to one and sticking with it the problem is knowing when to strike and how given how well they complement each other it might seem like there's never an opening and that's what makes them such a difficult fight all that's required though from the player is patience it's arguably one of the best fights in the game and even the series as a whole and i can finally see why while ons may seem like the climactic finish to the level hold your load as behind them is the real climax the princess of sunlight guinevere feel free to interpret climax however you want she is the one who gives us the lord vessel we need to progress through the game but as i said earlier it feels like we arrived late to a party well i wasn't lying once the post nut clarity settles in if we attack gwynevere the world of anor londo shows its true colors and reveals that it's just as depressing as everything else in lordran and the one responsible for this illusion is dark sun gwyndolin gwyndolin is an interesting case to me as he was the last born child of gwyn who was a male but was raised as a female this was due to his strong affinity with moon magic i'm not sure what the connection is but maybe it's some sort of cultural thing where the moon is seen as a sort of feminine symbol which would actually explain a lot regarding a future game and two of its characters gwyndolin also created the illusion of anor londo to seemingly entice the chosen undead to continue their duty remember gwyndolin only appears when we kill gwenevere's illusion meaning that this is actually gwyndolin speaking to us through his sister he also shares the same viewpoints as frampt which is interesting as he's basically telling us to kill his father and continue the age of fire gwyndolin seems to want to hold on to the power his family has and keep things running smoothly which is why he wants the age of fire to continue so that his family and their powers can stay and the reason why he created the illusion of anor londo was also to desperately hold on to the past ha i guess it runs in the family then as for how gwynevere fits into this well she was gwyn's second born child who like many other deities left in orlando she would then meet with a flame god flan and later become his wife besides these two gwen had two other children but we'll have to wait for dark souls 3 to discuss more about them so in orlando the city of gods this place that was supposed to be seen as a beacon of hope to all within lordran is just an illusion but anor londo isn't the only illusion of lordran but making our way to the painting inside the city upon touching it were thrown into the painted world of ariamis ariamus as a concept is fascinating as it's this world within a world and these people inside the painting could possibly never know of the world outside of it from exploring this hidden world we learn that ariamis was made for things the gods feared ariamis is home to the followers of velka and velka is known as the goddess of sin furthermore this is the only location in the game where you can find the dark ember which according to its item description is used to make occult weaponry weapons that were favorable amongst those who plan to kill the gods and their kin velka was more than likely someone who wanted to hunt the gods but was killed or thrown into the painting it's clear that this place has a malicious history behind it but it's not all bad as the person who watches over ariemus is crossbreed priscilla priscilla is a half-human half-dragon crossbreed due to this unique birth she also gained some unique abilities mainly the ability of life hunt which she uses on her scythe these powers of hers could threaten the gods rule so they also threw her into the painted world but what's rather interesting is priscilla herself she's the only boss in the game that doesn't want to fight us she even tells us how to leave ariamus meaning not only does she have no intent of enacting revenge but she knows how to leave yet refuses priscilla may have felt how these new arrivals feel but instead of using vengeance she uses acceptance and instead welcomes these people into her painted world it's actually quite wholesome and is the reason why i couldn't kill her every boss in this game is hell-bent on killing me so when i finally discovered one that didn't want to and in fact help me i couldn't refuse so i left with the hope that priscilla would be able to make this place a proper home for her people this whole area is swarming with hollows and other creatures that want nothing more than to kill us but they were either tricked into here or thrown in because the gods willed it and yeah some of them probably do belong in here but if priscilla is set on making this place a home for those who have found themselves here then who am i to intervene after acquiring the lord vessel when we meet with koth or frampt they'll tell us that to gain access to gwyn we must gather the remaining lord souls and use them to satiate the lord vessel these lord souls belong to four individuals seeth the scalus the witch of izalith nito and the four kings three of whom you will have already recognized from here we can tackle the game in any order we want so let's start with the four kings the four kings are well four kings who ruled over new londo they were given fragments of gwyn's soul which is why we need to kill them you may recognize their boss location as this is the same dark abyss that we met kathan well long ago the four kings were tricked by koth and were consumed by the abyss this caused the kings to go mad and this also caused the citizens to either become these blobs of mass or the dark wraith soldiers this area really utilizes the environment to tell its tail as this place is overrun by the ghosts of the villagers and when we actually unlock the door to lower new londo we see piles of corpses scattered throughout the land koth single-handedly destroyed an entire city simply by tricking its inhabitants and unleashing the abyss upon them while the mass extinction of a city sounds bad there is still more destruction to be seen one thing you may have noticed is a severe lack of human bosses quailag would probably count as the first one you'd meet although she's sort of half human but there's a reason for this as this has to do with the witch of izalith while gwyn was frantically running around trying to figure out what to do with the flame the witch of izalith had a plan she was going to create a new flame that would replace the first flame but she attempted to create a replica in the presence of the very thing that was created which brought with it massive consequences the witch of izalith wanted to create a new first flame but there was already a first flame present in the world there can't be two first flames due to this the flame that she created couldn't be contained for long causing it to erupt and this not only consumed her and her children but also created new life as it gave birth to demons the asylum taurus and capra demon roughly the first three bosses in the game were created from this event in fact anything that has the word demon in it is most likely derived from this flame of chaos but not only was new life created old life was altered all of eisele's family who were caught in the explosion were all transformed into demons themselves chaos which quailag the fair lady and ceaseless discharge are three of izalith's children just as gwyn was desperate to continue the age of fire in an attempt to keep what he had so too did izalith but the consequences are a reflection of her actions in an attempt to give life to something bright and warm she ended up giving life to something cold and dark she also wanted to extend the age of fire in order to continue her prosperous life with her children but by doing so she ended up making their lives a living hell not a single person in this family tree is living a robust life anymore quail egg and her sister the fair lady are half demon and are more than likely suffering from their condition as told to us by the fair lady what is it quite like my dear sister the eggs it hurts they've gone still i am afraid it may be too late i am so sorry dear sister cecilia's discharge was covered in lava source from birth so his life was a living hell from the start the flame of chaos just made it worse cesalo's discharged just like priscilla doesn't actually want to fight us it's only until we steal this clothing set that he attacks us this clothing set rests upon a grave that belonged to his sister kweilana who he believes died in the explosion when in fact she was the only one who escaped quelana will appear in blighttown if the player is sufficient enough in pyromancy quelana explains that she was the only one who made it out of the reaches of the flame of chaos in fact she was actually able to harness the power of the flame of chaos and create magic which we know as pyromancy quilana wants us to fulfill her duty for her as she does not have the strength to go on she instructs us that we need to put down her siblings and her mother so that they may rest in peace this whole family dynamic is horrific as ceaseless believes that all his sisters are dead even though kualana is alive and quelana is only a few meters from her sister and yet we can tell her about this clearly this is turning into a very depressing story but it only gets worse as we get closer to the final boss of the area we'll meet with a pyromancer who is assumed to be another daughter of izalit although it's unclear why she is so far down in these ruins yet is completely unharmed it's possible that she like way lana escaped the flame of chaos but this daughter came back to finish off the boss right behind her or has possibly gone insane and is now defending said boss and by going down this slide we will meet this monstrosity who is the bed of chaos this is the witch of izalith one of the four most powerful people in the world has been demoted to this deformed tree-like creature there are also these orbs next to her that we need to destroy in order to damage her and it's assumed by many that these are her other two daughters that were closest to her when the flame erupted so we have two daughters stuck to their mother two daughters who were half afflicted by the flame a son who is arguably the most affected and two daughters who manage to survive one who doesn't have the strength to carry on anymore and another who sits outside her mother's arena this is by far the most depressing story i've ever had the misfortune of uncovering the further we push into lost izalith the more of the family we get to meet allowing us to see the consequences of her actions we can see the pain that all of them are in as some of them are just wishing for their siblings back and others just want to stay alive it's an awful story that all leads to the final fight with izalith herself and it is by far the most anticlimactic ending i've ever experienced it is agreed upon by many that the bet of chaos is the worst fight in dark souls 1. the boss is insanely difficult but it's not the difficulty itself that's the issue it's why the boss is difficult i would argue that just within the main game the two hardest bosses are the four kings and ornstein and smoke ons are difficult bosses because there's two of them you have to have both on screen at all times or you'll lose this fight this is balanced by having ornstein be fast but not as lethal and smo being slow and hard hitting it's a wonderful dichotomy that makes for a satisfying fight and the four kings is a dps check as every 30 to 45 seconds a second king will spawn and this will keep going until 4 on your screen at once to succeed you need to kill the current king before this happens both boss fights are hard but have weaknesses you can exploit the bet of chaos has none to defeat the boss you need to destroy both orbs on her sides then go down the middle inside of her so you can find the source of her power she's actually extremely weak as both the orbs and her die in one hit it's getting there that's the issue her hand attack is oddly timed and due to her design it's unclear where her hitbox ends after defeating one of the orbs the floor will start to crumble so not only do you need to avoid her attacks but you'll also need to avoid the floor there's also a strict path you're meant to follow for this fight which will lead you right next to a broken piece and the flooring so you'll more than likely get hit and fall in and die the walk back to this boss is also just as atrocious as you'll more than likely spend more time walking to the boss than actually fighting her thankfully there is no reset involved in this boss as every single run you've done is carried over to the next as it essentially has unlimited checkpoints it's like from software knew it was bad but still kept it in even if i actually enjoyed the fight the payoff narratively isn't worth the time we ventured further and further into the depths of lost izalith coming across all of her children who were these hideous beasts that did incredible damage and she's just a puzzle the witch of izalith has one of the best backstories in the game as the tale of her children is heartbreaking and being able to see their conditions face to face does take a lot out of you but it's completely soured by a boss fight that is mechanically and narratively a letdown our third lord soul belongs to grave lord nedo and he's interesting to say the least nito might have the most detailed boss design but the most basic story out of all the four lords if you were to just assume that mito simply became the grim reaper and just administered death you wouldn't be far off which is a shame for someone of his importance grave lord nido lives in the tomb of giants which is accessed via the catacombs both these areas share a similar theme of death as this is where the dead are buried so we know that he administers death but what else does he do well not much else he does have a covenant that you can join but their goal is just to spread more death across the world it seems like he doesn't care about what's going on in the world as the only reason he attacks you is because we're obviously here with malicious intent leader doesn't have any lore regarding his life during the age of fire and it's just about him administering death from this we can infer that nito either doesn't care about the age of fire or maybe even just wants the age of darkness to occur the only other bit of lore surrounding him is a boss named pinwheel who is a necromancer presumably made up of three people as referenced by the number of masks on the body who stole an item from him known as the rite of kindling there are quite a few theories regarding pinwheel like the fact that pinwheel was originally a father but his wife and child died so he attempted to resurrect them but it failed and some have stated further that he's still trying to figure out how to revive them as we can see skeletons throughout the room which could be seen as his test subjects but other than that we've pretty much discussed all of nito there isn't anything else to speak about which is a real shame his backstory has a massive amount of potential but it just felt unfinished there are no major themes tied to nito he just kinda exists our final lord soul belongs to seath descales seath as we remember allied himself with our four lords and attacked the dragons the reason he did this was because seath unlike the other dragons was not immortal all the other dragons had impenetrable scales that could not be broken with any type of weapon sheath was not born with these scales so in a sense he was not immortal it was only until gwyn was given their weakness from seath which we know is lightning that gwyn was able to pierce the dragon's scales and actually kill them seath was envious of his brethren as they had what he didn't so as thanks for working with gwyn he was named the duke and given the duke's archives as well as some of gwyn's lord soul for power during the war seath found the primordial crystal an item that gave him temporary immortality but during this time in the duke's archives he eventually went mad with his experiments in his research he is considered the grandfather of sorcery as well as the creator of these creatures and the moonlight butterfly our first interaction with seath is that he ends up killing us and throwing us in a prison cell we can see that theme of desperation as seath is trying everything he can to get what he wants but in the process it made him mad he's not as mindful of his actions as he used to be in a sort of a shadow of his former self one thing i find interesting in this prison is the abundance of miracle-related items and the clothing that are scattered throughout the prison it's possible that clerics were deemed suitable subjects for seath experiments maybe this is due to their magical power or because they were so easy to defeat to kill seath though we need to head to the crystal caves which i was originally going to say was probably the worst level in this game due to half the map being invisible but the walk to the boss is surprisingly straightforward venturing off that path though is where the problem lies to defeat seath we need to break his primordial crystals that we can sever his immortality giving us a chance to kill him the story of these lords caused a bit of an imbalance throughout my playthrough you can go through lost izalith and the demon ruins which is filled with rich lore tons of backstory and compelling bosses that fit with the lore surrounding the witch of izalith but then you go to the four kings and just find out that they were lords of new londo who got tricked by koth and consumed by the abyss it feels jarring going from one to the other as one feels thorough while the other feels incomplete like you missed something or there was more that should have been said i don't think every boss needs to have a multi-page wikipedia article in order for it to be considered a good story i think that the boss's story said what needed to be said in regards to the overarching plot but i can't lie to you and tell you that i didn't leave these locations wanting more i wanted to know more about the four kings and how they rose to power and i wanted to know more about nito and sith in general but i never got that and i guess in a way this could be viewed as a positive as i didn't walk out of these places not wanting to learn them at all but rather wanted to learn more the game invested me so much into its story thanks to its characters and environmental storytelling that i wanted the game to provide me with more information on it i wanted to be encapsulated by this story more than i already was as with many souls games not all answers are explicitly told to us but there were still a lot of burning questions i had that never got mentioned with the lord souls on the vessel we are now able to fight gwyn but we still have one final location we need to visit which is the land of oolacile accessed by the artorius of the abyss dlc the one and only dlc that dark souls 1 would have we start this dlc by defeating this gold golem that has a woman named dusk captured inside dusk was the princess of a place called oolacile according to her it's a place from an age that existed long ago hilariously enough she doesn't actually say anything after this you would think that the dlc would sort of spin a story that her home is in danger and we need to save her but she doesn't actually tell us that she just sells us sorceries the dlc doesn't officially start though until we return back to her location with an item called the broken pendant which causes us to get sucked in into this portal and taken to oolacile as dusk said ulysses was a place from long ago and while you may be confused on how this fits within the geography of lordran this place is a lot closer than you think in fact we already ran through it to get to the dlc the dark rouge garden is oolacile this is evident by the tree enemies who have a similar design to these tree-like enemies and the same plants that are only found in the dark root garden are also found here as well oolusio was a city hundreds of years before the dark rouge garden came to be so something happened that made this place turn into the garden that we know of well to understand the story of ulysses we need to talk to elizabeth but princess dusk is here no longer snatched away by that horrifying primeval human and so i must ask could thou once more play the savior an abyss was begat of the ancient beast and threatens to swallow the whole of ulysses knight artorias came to stop this but such a hero has neary a murmur of dark without doubt he will be swallowed by the abyss overcome by its utter blackness indeed the abyss may be unstoppable still i have faith that princess dusk may be rescued yet this prime evil human is manus of the abyss the final boss of the dlc and the thing that sucked us into ulusil in the first place so our job is to hunt manus down my main gripe with the dlc is justification as technically with the lord vessel we can just leave so why do we need to worry about this it's not an immersion breaking problem but it is a shame while traveling to the land of ulysses you will come across this coliseum-like structure which is where we get to meet our next boss artorius of the abyss artorius was one of the four knights of gwyn the other three are hawkeye goth who is sitting at the top of the tower right next to the coliseum karen who appears in the coliseum after we defeat artorius and the final light is orenstein each of them were skilled in their own ways as hawkeye used his powerful grapo to shoot down dragons in fact he can actually help us shoot down calamite who was the last of the ancient dragons ornstein also used his spear that was able to cut through the scales of dragons with ease and we can also see the spoils of his war due to the amount of dragon heads that exist in anor londo artorias is also able to wield his greatsword with incredible finesse and cairn used her two daggers to cut down anyone who opposed gwyn's rule but all of them minus orenstein are way past their prime which is a growing theme amongst the entire series goth was imprisoned in this tower with nothing left to do but to make carvings he also couldn't use his grape bow anymore as all the dragons have been wiped out so he has no purpose karen may have had a deep love for artoria says when we visit her she is next to a grave she made for him and asks if we can give her his soul if we do she gives us her weapons and continues to sit by the grave implying that she no longer wants to be a knight anymore and artorias came to ulucio in attempt to stop the abyss from spreading but ended up losing and being corrupted himself his left arm is also dangling which might suggest that it's broken this is because he used his shield to protect his wolf companion sith the same sif from the main game although he is much smaller in this dlc sif also has a different intro if you do the dlc first because oolacio is in the past so he'll remember you in the present and it makes killing him that much harder in regards to sif it's possible that he doesn't want us getting the covenant of the abyss ring as that allows us to travel through the abyss to kill the four kings and given his owner's condition siff probably doesn't want us to end up like artorias the artorious boss fight was actually really entertaining he was the first boss that felt like the antithesis of this game's combat most of the game's pace has been very slow and methodical but he has these fast attacks and very few openers i do wish though that there was at least an ounce of build up to this fight as you can literally start the dlc and be at the boss room in about 10 minutes i think having the player traverse some of the areas that are covered in these abyss creatures that grow in number as we get closer to artorias would have been great as it's slowly leading us towards this person responsible for all this death well narratively it felt a bit too fast for me the fight mechanically was great after artorias we can explore the rest of uliseo and we can see how much this land has been affected by the abyss as all the inhabitants have been infected by this dark energy turning them into these disgusting creatures eventually we'll reach the bottom and this feeling of fear starts to set in as the world becomes darker and darker the further we go down here in the chasm of the abyss is where the darkness reaches its peak and it's where these dark sprites of humanity live these are very similar in design to the actual humanity we consume in game this seems to be humanity in a more physical form one that is more exposed and not constricted by the dark side at the foot of the chasm is our final boss manus the father of the abyss menace has an interesting story apparently the people of ulysses were tricked by a serpent who was probably coth into digging manus grave up in doing so it caused manus to go wild and unleash his wrath upon them according to his soul manus was once a human but became father of the abyss when his humanity went wild and now he eternally seeks his broken pendant the same pendant we had to find to start the dlc it's unclear why he liked this pendant so much but it was possibly nostalgic to him or was given to him by someone he loved and because this pendant was so important to him he did everything he could to get it back which inevitably drove him to insanity it seems that he got so desperate to find the pendant that he pulled in random people into this world as the npc marvelous chester is clearly not from this world and he even says so himself he also kind of looks like the hunters from bloodborne which is a nice reference to the game the main question many within the community have though is who was manus before he became his current deformed state well we really don't know many have said it's the furtive pygmy and i like that idea but i think it's less interesting than that many of the spells in this dlc say that they were created by an oolacilian sorcerer on the brink of madness i can't help but think that this is perfect for manus description one thing that is interesting is that in the middle of the arena is a grave with a humanity-shaped hole so maybe manus was one of these humanity sprites when he died or that this is what he turned into when he died regardless it's a very interesting detail i also couldn't get any footage of this as she disappears when he leaves the boss room but dusk apparently appears out of manus when we kill him meaning that he kidnapped her this may confuse some people as dusk has been sort of all over the place in this game and due to her going from the past to the present it sort of screws with the time a bit it seems like she was sent into our time somehow and was captured by this golem she then disappears and goes back into her time which then leads the abyss incident with the people of oolacile artorias is then called to defeat the abyss but fails and then we get summoned into this world via manus hand then save dusk and go back to the present it's still a little confusing and the world of dark souls is also very confusing when it comes to time as always during this fading of the fire time is very convoluted because we can summon people as phantoms and the time sort of stops it's very confusing but that's how i think it went down but with manis dead we have officially finished the dlc however this won't be the last time we'll hear of manus but that's for dark souls 2. artorias of the abyss was a great dlc while it does lack in motivation and regards to the player the actual story of the dlc was great it provides us with a nice timeline of events as well as more insight into the abyss and its effects on the world and while not known at the time it would eventually set up the plot to dark souls 2. it is without a doubt a worthy extension to the game's story but now we can finally go to the kiln of the first flame and determine the fate of lordran the kiln is coded in ash and we can see the spirits of those who followed gwyn into the kill and walk around aimlessly as we approach the first flame we have one person in our way and that is the lord of sunlight himself earlier i said gwyn sacrificed himself to rekindle the flame and he did but because of his lord soul's power he was able to keep his body but his mind was gone gwyn has gone hollow and while i'm more than capable of killing it myself i couldn't dare start the fight without the guy who's been by my side since the very beginning solaire of astora is easily the most well-known npc in the entire souls franchise and his story is a perfect representation of the mood this game is trying to convey throughout the whole game we've been meeting with npcs of all kinds some with goals and others without but none of them have managed to touch my heart in a way that solaire and siegmeyer did both of them had a goal in mind one wants to find his sunlight and the other wants to explore the world but both are stuck sigmar always seems to be getting himself caught in some situation whether that be a locked gate he can enter or a poison swamp he can cross and solaire can find his sunlight they both willingly became undead in order to achieve their goals and it tore me apart to hear that sigmar couldn't see it through sigmar prides himself on being a knight of katarina and that he can handle all of his troubles on his own but with my help i showed him that he wasn't a worthy knight after all and that he always needed someone to rescue him more often than not in these games your assistance will lead to their death so it's either converse with them and enjoy their company knowing that they will die because of you or distance yourself from them knowing that while it hurts it's better that they get to live another day npcs of these games will usually end up achieving a terrible fate but this sadness makes the few times a happy outcome occurs all the better solaire wasn't able to find sunlight of his own he became depressed and wondered if this journey was really worth taking conveying the tone of the entire game is our journey and our struggle really worth it in the end which is why i owed it to him to make it right it may not be the actual sun but the first flame could be considered the sun so for one final time i summoned solaire and we took down lord gwyn gwyn's theme has such a fitting tune all these bosses have these intense sounds with loud music but guinness is such a simple piano it's not intense it's almost sad in a way that the most powerful man in the world has been reduced to nothing and what was supposed to be a glorious fight between two warriors really isn't it makes it all the more worse when you realize that gwyn can be parried and once you nail this timing down this fight is a cake walk further showing how far from grace he has truly fallen with gwyn defeated we can now choose our ending but we aren't the only one who is able to choose since we managed to bring solaire all the way to the end of the game he was able to also fight gwyn in his own world thanks to the convoluted timelines of dark souls and it is canonized that he succeeded and linked the flame in his own world he became the sunlight he was searching for and that might be one of the greatest endings in the entire franchise but while solaire linked the flame that doesn't mean we have to if we choose the age of fire the world continues we rekindle the flame and use ourselves as kindling to continue this age of fire if we instead choose to leave we let the flame extinguish itself we join the primordial serpents including koth and probably frampt and usher in an age of dark one where humanity is at the top and we ourselves are the ruler at least that's what we think will happen like many plots on the soul series this is once again left up to interpretation we only get to see the very beginning of our choice so anything after is just pure speculation who knows what will happen after and who knows if our choice was really the correct one that's always been up to the player to decide but i've always felt that these endings are about comfort do we stay comfortable knowing that in the age of fire we aren't on top and might be mistreated due to our lack of strength or do we take the risk and see what the age of dark is about one thing to note though is the circumstances regarding these endings fram says that the undead curse will be cured if we go with the age of fire and not even koth says anything about this when we talk with him about it so does that mean that we'll stay undead or at least still have the risk of going hollow in the age of dark furthermore the age of fire was a time ruled by the gods and they did what they could to keep it that way but we killed them everyone in anor londo that is a god is either dead or gone gwyndolin is the only one that canonically lives thanks to dark souls 3. so even though an age of fire can be seen as the age of gods that might not be true anymore as we took care of most of them so there is positives and negatives both ways and that's really been the point there's never going to be a clear answer it's just whatever you think is right as for me i think an age of dark is the proper way to go as we said in the intro the world of dark souls is like a set of operations things come and things go and the age of dark should have followed after the age of fire but due to gwyn breaking the rules of the world that didn't happen so i think in an attempt to set things back on track before further destruction an age of dark is the way to go regardless of what happens in this age of dark at the very least things will transition back to the way it was supposed to be however that might not be the actual ending given the future titles some have debated on proper endings and given the status of dark souls 3 linking the flame i think is the real ending and is definitely the most agreed upon as just about every person in this game will speak about linking the flame we only hear about the age of dark from koth who we have to jump through several hoops to just even meet i can almost guarantee someone has gone throughout the entire game and didn't even know that an age of dark was the real option because of how hidden it is and while it's not my preferred ending continuing the age of fire would set in motion numerous events for us to discover dark souls 1 was a fantastic experience from start to finish and while the road was a little bumpy sometimes along the way it's story wrapped up wonderfully it's a game that i recommend you play at least once in your lifetime as you will never get to experience something like this ever again but we're just getting started dark souls 2 is a brilliant game it takes into account the age of fire in the age of dark and asks the question why there are only two options and then continues this idea by shutting out both ages by making something else the main plot of the story something that i will explain throughout this video so without further ado let's get started so before we start talking about the story we need to address the game as a whole dark souls 2 requires a different mindset in order to grasp what the game is trying to tell you as we saw in dark souls 1 the game relied heavily on the cycles of the world to be the main plot it's all about the age of fire in the age of dark and what these cycles mean how they impact the world and what age we'll choose when we get to the end this means it also relies heavily on the world itself dark souls 1 was about our four lords how they rose to power and what they did with that power and what the state of the world is because of said power as such we play a very insignificant person in regards to the overall world but dark souls 2 isn't like that it's not about the age of fire and the fate of the world it's about one kingdom and how this one kingdom handled its own cycle wardram was important as it was the first kingdom in the age of fire but drang lake isn't important at all it's just one of the hundreds of kingdoms built on the same land and that's what makes dark souls 2 so special it's the insignificance of this game that makes it so compelling because it isn't tied down by the world's pantheon it uses what dark souls 1 created as a way to write its own story this game isn't about the cycles it's about one small part of the cycles the undead curse and the quicker you realize that dark souls 2 is reshaping the proverbial mold that is dark souls 1 the better this game gets but to explain why we need to start playing our opening cinematic shows our character collapsing in a rainy forest the narrator talks about the undead curse and how it will infect your mind how it has the ability to remove all that you hold dear and all that you remember with every minute the curse gets worse and worse until you go hollow as that is the fate for all undead but this narrator speaks of a kingdom called durang lake and how we'll walk towards its gate without ever knowing why we know why we're here in drang lake as our character is trying to find a cure for the undead curse so they no longer feel its effects but they're unsure of why during lake specifically just as the mind gravitates towards the smell of food when hungry the mind of the undead is drawn to souls and drang lake has plenty of them to get to drain lake we must cross a lake and enter a portal the scene tries to portray this event as some marvelous spectacle but that couldn't be farther from the truth once we cross this gate we're never coming back we'll either be trapped here until we cure the curse or go hollow the gate is even surrounded by bright bugs which are known to comfort the dead almost like it's luring us to our deaths so for one final time we gather our thoughts and jump on the other side of this portal is the things betwixt a place stuck in limbo that serves as a connection between drang lake and the outside world like i said we're stuck here for good inside this limbo is a house of women three of whom are fire keepers that are being cared for by their housekeeper and they're very honest about our arrival you're finished you'll go hollow yes you'll become one of them hollows prey upon them feast upon their souls this is the fate of the cursed [Laughter] we aren't the first undead to walk through their doors and we won't be the last and all of them have met the same fate so what makes us any different dark souls 2 tries to set in this feeling of hopelessness something that's very consistent throughout the trilogy no one truly believes we can accomplish our goal but that's what makes the emerald herald so wonderful she believes that we can succeed in our goal and will help us in any way that she can and by providing us the means to level up she might be the most helpful person in the game this is why the level up ladies of the franchise have always been seen in such a positive light they don't discriminate and they don't bother questioning if what we're doing is working they have an undying motivation to help us succeed regardless if there's something to gain from it they're like a bright light in a dark tunnel as all around them are people who have given up i am sulden and like you i lost everything and now i'm here the location they both reside in is majula a small town on the outskirts of drang lake and it's the music displays a feeling of peace a place that is void of death a place that you can feel comfortable in and in the world of dark souls a place like that is more than necessary i've always preferred when the main hubs were seamlessly integrated into the world something that would be eventually lost with the series going forward as it makes the world more believable and in the case of majula without it you'd be missing this beautiful scenery after taking in the view we can speak to the emerald herald who will reveal our objective seek those whose names are unutterable the four endowed with immense souls these four beings are known as the four great ones the lost sinner the old iron king the rotten and the dukes deer freya just like before we have four beings that need to be slain in order to continue and just like dark souls one how we go about killing them and in what order we want to go in is entirely up to us but one thing to point out though is that the emerald herald isn't a fire keeper at least she wasn't originally her real name is shenalocht and she was given this name by the dragons her purpose was to break the undead curse but seeing as there is thousands of hollows in draeng lake she clearly failed her goal now is to just rest at majula guiding the undead on their journey to succeed king vendrick before we go though i want to talk about the npcs i think dark souls 2 really dropped the ball when it came to these characters many of them are extremely forgettable and seem to only be placed in the worlds that the player can be given a tangible item rather than an engaging story benhart of jugo is a good example as he seems like a compelling character that may have a memorable quest all for it to crumble almost immediately his whole questline revolves around his family heirloom the giant teal sword resting on his shoulder which you may recognize as the moonlight greatsword except this one is a fake it doesn't have the magical properties of the original but benhart believes that with enough strength he can unlock its true power i would have dropped this quest entirely if it wasn't for the fact that he gives us the sword at the end of it he provides a little to no substance to the world and this goes for a vast majority of characters we meet there are over 40 npcs in this game and about 90 of them provide the player with a service and some of their services are either outclassed or completely useless lenocraft is the majula blacksmith but the player may find mcduff another blacksmith except macduff can do everything lenograss can do but with the added bonus of being able to infuse weapons and gevlon is a lonely merchant who only sells five items four of which are poison he also has three set locations so in order to purchase his services you'll need to go out of your way to find him and that's if you really want poison equipment there's just so much clutter as half these characters could literally just combine into one general goods merchant thankfully it's not all bad lucatiel has a wonderful questline as she shows us the horrific reality that is the undead curse she was a warrior of mira but now she barely remembers who she is by the time we get to the end of her questline she's practically pleading for us to remember her name as she may not remember it herself it's unclear why she came to drang lake in the first place but given that her brother aslutil will invade us only a few feet from her final location it's possible that she was looking for him but now both of them have succumbed to the curses affliction never truly knowing what happened to the other thankfully lucatiel isn't the only character of note in this game as the feud between creighton and pate and the peaceful conversations with vengara were fantastic being able to take the role of a detective and truly uncover which one is telling the truth and then choosing a side before one prevails was a great investigation and the fact that a talking head can get me to listen to his life's story as he thinks about his past life and how much he despises it shows me that this game has some wonderful stories that are just waiting to be uncovered you just have to weed through the dozens of merchants in order to find them getting back on track we're still on the hunt for the four great ones once again this is similar to dark souls 1 but instead of ringing the bells of awakening and then finding the lord souls we just have to find the souls already if you remember from that video on dark souls 1 i said that the bells of awakening section was a bit slow as not much in terms of plot was happening it wasn't until we rang them that the story really started to take off well in dark souls 2 it's the same unless you look at the bigger picture before we get to the four great ones there are a lot of other areas we need to go through first for example to get to the lost center we need to go through majula to hayde's tower of flame to no man's wharf through the lost bastille and then to center's rise where the boss is located all these locations will seem pointless and if you just only do this boss fight it will continue to feel like that it isn't until later in the game when the climax hits that things start to make sense no man's wharf is a small port town and its final boss is the flexile century the century's job was to take as many undead as they could fit on this boat and send them to the lost bastille which is a prison for the undead but this isn't the only location to have lore regarding the curse the huntsman's cops was a hunting ground for the old iron king's men who were tasked with killing any undead on sight but as you would expect they too also succumb to the curse next to this area is the undead purgatory where a chariot rider continually kills and punishes the undead it's also possible that these necromancers were purposely stationed here this may imply that the necromancers were used to resurrect the undead so that they can be repeatedly killed for entertainment like i said this game does not focus on the cycles of the world it's all about the curse and this is only discovered once we get further in the game but in the beginning it may seem a bit overplayed that's why it's required to have a different mindset going into this game if you're thinking about the cycles and this game's lore will be boring and repetitive but it's actually brilliant once everything comes together as these early areas are showing how different rulers are reacting to the curse and what their actions are as a result of it and speaking of rulers one of them happens to be one of the four great ones the old iron king resides in the iron keep but to get there we must pass through the huntsman cops which we know is the place the old iron king sent his men to hunt the undead behind this location is harvest valley and earthen peak two areas that are coated in poison thanks to one individual mytha the baneful queen but this story is rather tragic she wasn't originally like this monster we see today she was a beautiful queen but her drive to win her beloved's heart back is what drove her to such lengths myth's story though does have some complications she has named both queen and princess and that she loved a prince and sought the king's affection her story is very confusing because we don't really understand whether she was a queen and a princess or just one of them but whoever this person was it's clear they did not love her and thus she began using poison as a way to obtain beauty but this came with its own set of problems as the poison started turning her into a snake-like monster and yet while she was sulking around her room day in and day out trying to win the heart of a man she unknowingly already succeeded in doing just that the covetous demon was a human who loved mytha and cherished her no matter what form she took he tried to showcase his love for her through gluttony but this too would change him and turn him into the monster we see today but despite his change in appearance his love for the queen never wavered behind the poisonous swamp of earthen peak is the iron keep home of the old iron king the old iron king was a lord of very little power but he would then eventually meet a knight called sir elon who trained his soldiers in the art of battle the old iron king would then eventually build his kingdom but doing so cost him almost all his assets but one day he discovered an iron producing miracle this allowed him to control iron to his heart's content which led to the iron keep a giant fortress made entirely of iron he started creating soldiers made entirely of iron and even a demon of fire called the smelter demon this idea of creating things a free will with only raw materials is also related to the undead chariot which of course was his creation so he's quite familiar with this craft eventually for whatever reason sir alone would leave the iron keep and set out in search of unknown lands after losing his most trusted knight the iron king sought the council of a man named agel he was presumably a pyromancer due to his goal of trying to give fire a will of its own the two worked together to create the aforementioned smelter demon but this would bring disastrous consequences to the keep the two never considered that by giving something free will it has the chance to turn on its creator and the smelter demon did just that with one swing it obliterated the iron king and sent him into the lava it was born from this act also caused the lava to take on a much larger form and crash into the iron keep consuming it in lava as we see now but while the keeping its soldiers were scrambling to higher ground something else happened the iron king's body came in contact with an old soul the old king's soul to those in the present day he is known as the one who shall not be named but for us we know him as gwyn when killed the old iron king will drop the iron king's soul but it's only on new game plus that we uncover the truth that the old iron king has come to possess the very soul that gwyn possessed all those years ago but the old iron king isn't the only one each of our four great ones has come in contact with a soul that belonged to a notable character from the past game but not only did it give them strength it may have also carried with it the emotions of those it belonged to both gwyn and the old iron king share a theme of power gwyn wanted to keep his god-like power and as such took multiple steps in order to achieve that like linking the first flame branding humanity with the dark side and tossing things he felt could threaten their rule into the painted world of ariamis and while his feelings weren't as fierce as gwyns the old iron king also desired power he wanted to ensure a protected and impenetrable kingdom while also relishing in the power that comes of being a king so he used his power to create a giant kingdom with skilled knights and dozens of monstrous creatures made from iron and then displayed his power by tormenting the undead for sport and torturing them endlessly simply because he could but while the iron king tortured undead against their will there was one person whose torture was self-imposed located in the center's rise underneath the lost bastille is a prisoner who willingly imprisoned themselves for the sins of their past according to shalakhar majula's resident feline her sin was that she tried to light the first flame but the key word is light implying that it had already gone out so how would this be considered a sin if anything it would be the opposite sadly we never truly know what any of it means one thing we do know is whose soul she possesses before the boss fight starts a bug crawls into her eye specifically a chaos bug the same one from lost lazalith she is in possession of the witch of izalit's soul we know that these bugs have mind controlling capabilities as evidenced by the bad ending of solaire's questline so it's possible that the lost sinner intended to let us into her cell until the chaos bug felt threatened but that still doesn't answer the question regarding her self-imprisonment maybe she wanted to keep the chaos bug and in turn her from escaping as this crazed version of the law center could have run rampant and slaughter dozens of people or maybe she's somehow feeling the emotions of izalith who probably felt immense guilt for creating the bed of chaos so maybe this feeling of guilt is being transferred over to the lost center without her knowing to this day it's still a mystery but a very compelling one at that the witch of izalith had a desire to create life which is why she wanted to make a new first flame but she wasn't the only one who had desires but that being's legacy may have created even more devastation than intended the duke's dear freya is a spider who is in possession of seath's soul but seath's feelings and desires are able to engulf those who come in contact with it freya's soul talks about a writhing ruin and how this ancient thing casts a shadow over the land and that at some point in its life it came in contact with a solitary insect but grew its power feasting on the wealth of twisted souls found within the land if we defeat freyja we can enter the lord's private chambers which houses the duke of seldora himself and a cage that presumably belonged to freya the writhing ruin was created from seat's intense feeling of want he searched endlessly for a way to be immortal even when he was plagued by insanity and it's because of how powerful his desires were that they seemed to linger on past his death the writhing ruin would go on to possess others in an attempt to obtain something as he possessed a being that turned man scorpion tark and his wife into half-human creatures it has this insatiable urge to achieve something what that something is will depend on the individual seath wanted immortality and freyja may have just wanted strength or power regardless this writhing ruin will presumably seek something until it doesn't for eternity and ruin many lives in the process it's obvious by now that there seems to be a parallel between our old cast and our new ones in regards to their feelings and emotions whether they receive these similar feelings when they came in contact with the old souls or the souls were attracted to them because of their feelings is unknown but our old friends legacies continue to bring disaster even after their death but for one of them that may not be the case our final great one is the rotten in medjula there is a giant pit and assuming you can get down there without dying you'll arrive at the grave of saints a catacomb that used to be a burial site before it was overrun by rats i was admittedly a bit confused running through here as i thought this was some ongoing joke i wasn't aware of as there's a literal rat talking to me calling me his servant in the most serious tone possible it's pretty pointless and it's best if we ignore it and moved on but sadly we won't be doing much moving as much as we will be falling dark souls 2 somehow managed to surpass blighttown and quality by making the gutter a darker version of blighttown all while being poisoned thanks to these statues just like blighttown the lore is quite similar as these are the citizens of various kingdoms that were tossed away out of sight from the rest of the world after the gutter is the black gulch the home of the rotten the rotten possesses the soul of nito but instead of their emotions being similar it seems to just be their appearance nido was an amalgamation of skeletons and the rotten is an amalgamation of dead bodies but whereas nido was hell-bent on administering death throughout the world the rotten seems to sort of embrace or comfort it these statues might possibly be the people who have died down here in the pits he might be trying to comfort these hollows in their new life and these statues seem to be a showcasing of his feelings towards his new community what is rather odd though is that these statues in the boss room don't shoot poison at us so it's possible that they weren't meant to shoot poison originally and it's because of this poisonous rot that has taken over the pits that they're allowed to do so throughout our discussion about the great ones you obviously notice the connections between our old and new cast of characters but you may have also noticed the lack of lore there is a lot of information that is either completely unclear or only given some amount of weight thanks to the abundance of theories from the community dark souls 2 is both the most understood and most confusing game within the trilogy it just depends on what answers you're looking for however i feel like i'm content with this one thing that bothered me about dark souls 1 as we discussed before is that i left some of these boss arenas with more questions and answers i wanted to know who the four kings of new londo were and how they rose to power i also wanted to know more about nito and his role in the world after the war with the dragons and while i definitely have similar questions regarding some of our great ones i left majority of these areas feeling complete like i had learned what needed to be learned and i uncovered the real story and that's the benefit of creating something like dark souls 2. we don't really need to know what these great ones did and how they shaped the fate of the world because they didn't despite how important many of the characters in this game may seem at the end of the day they're just another kingdom in a long line of other kingdoms no one is going to remember them and no one is going to care about them that is why i feel satisfied when leaving the black gulcher center's rise i've uncovered enough lore to get a generous picture of their life with a few holes just big enough for me to make some solid theories with all four great ones slain we can now go to drangleic castle or can we this is aldia the brother of king vendrick and the scholar of the first sin aldia's story is very unclear at the moment but we'll eventually learn more about him later once we enter drangleic castle we'll see this phantom by the name of welliger he's a sort of lore dump which admittedly might not be the best way to handle this information but given the nature of these games where you can go a whole play through without really knowing anything maybe it's necessary regardless welliger shares with us some backstory on drayng lake and vendrick king vendrick conquered four great ones and built a kingdom upon their very souls he then met a lady named nashandra who warned vendrick of another looming threat these beings were known as giants king vendrick could eventually cross the seas and battle these giants completely decimating their civilization as a consolation prize he took most of them prisoner and ran experiments on them this is what led to the creation of the golems these beings we see inside the castle and with the golems he was able to build drang lake castle later in the game we'll acquire this item called the ashen mist heart this allows us to peer into the memories of some specific beings most of these memories are from dead giants we come across in the first level these all showcase different sections of drangleic being overrun by giants and one of them even shows us the location of the giant lord we'd see the destruction that they left during lake castle in and we can also see how outmatched the soldiers really were even though they outnumber them three or four to one they're getting decimated at every turn but somehow they were able to persevere considering there's no giants in draen lake but i think the person responsible for some of this victory is us these memories operate like oolacile from dark souls 1 where we go back in time to alter the past and then go back to the present this may tie into a subtle hint very early in the game the first boss in dark souls 2 is the last giant whose boss soul description reads the lord of the giants who had brought wreck and ruin to the entire kingdom was said to have been felt by an unknown warrior his beaten and broken remains were then dragged beneath the stronghold where he was sealed away this random giant soul references the giant lord and also describes the exact condition this giant is in meaning this giant is the giant lord and that must mean the unknown warrior was us this might explain why he thrashes his arms around trying to break free as he remembers us and wants revenge this is the complete backstory of drang lake which gives us enough answers to our questions but simultaneously gives us new questions we want answers to such as the whereabouts of nashandra well close to the top of the castle is the queen herself the last king of this land king vendrick as he was called he found the strength to rule his people and when the undead were born cursed he found more strength to face them but in the end he never took the true throne visit vendrick we have no need for two rulers so nashandra wants us to find king vendrick as she says there is no need for two rulers but she also mentions that king vendrick never took the throne she just casually says this statement as if this isn't some huge revelation since gwyn people have been rekindling the flame but vendrick didn't but that doesn't mean vendrick wants to bring about an age of dark he doesn't want either this is even more unheard of as no one has even attempted to invoke a third solution to the fading of the first flame but to learn more we need to find vendrick he resides in the undead crypt but blocking our path is two bosses the looking glass knight and velvet stad the royal aegis both of these fights were fantastic both from the actual combat to the design of the bosses i'm just upset that it took this long for this feeling to finally come to fruition i rambled for quite a bit about the bosses in dark souls 1 like how ornstein and small were fantastic and how i despised the bed of chaos but i haven't found the right time to talk about the bosses in dark souls 2 as there really isn't much to say most of them are pretty underwhelming for the most part and this is down to a few factors one was simply over levelling since dark souls 2 has 32 bosses in the main game it's very easy to miss some i didn't find the chariot or old dragon's lair until much later when i revisited those areas so i was a bit over prepared for the boss fight dark souls 1 had a really great way of getting the player's progression while also guiding them down a path which in turn made every fight feel like a proper match it wasn't a one-sided victory for the most part there were a few exceptions like gwyndolin and pinwheel but they have very low health pool so it's a bit hard to judge them the other two reasons are just down to overall enjoyment and the summons the majority of the bosses in this game not only have summitable npcs but multiple at that i had two summons for the looking glass knight and while the game does attempt to balance this by adding more health we all know the main strength of the summons is to be an extra body for the boss to hit which means less attention on us and more time to get free hits in i will admit this trivialized many fights the smelter demon the rotten and probably a few others were really easy with summons but that comes to my next issue to complete some of these npc questlines we talked about earlier they need to be summoned for bosses as someone who's trying to get as much lore as possible in one playthrough i needed to continue these summons questline so while i was gaining more progress with the npcs it came at the cost of the quality of the fights this makes me even more disappointed as many of these quest lines didn't even go anywhere so they were just completely useless and wasted my time some of the boss fights though just sucked regardless i was pretty disappointed with chariot fight even though it was a cool idea i just wasn't a big fan of it and this game's obsession with gang fights is quite insane the ruined sentinels and the belfry gargoyles were just not entertaining in the slightest ornstein and smoke only worked because of how different they were in regards to their moveset and how the arena was designed and the bell gargoyles were okay for the most part since the second one didn't come until halfway plus they used different move sets the ruined sentinels were the same enemy copied three times with zero obstacles to separate them minus the one platform you start on and the belfry gargoyles got way out of hand with close to three or four at the same time in the same arena as the original fight which is not that large and very open i did manage to beat them on my own so i was happy that i won but only because i knew i'd never have to do that fight again as for the four great ones the old king was just awful even though i had a summon with me his moves would have been the same regardless and they were almost too easy to evade the other three were pretty good but nothing spectacular they did provide some intense moments but i did have to summon lucatiel for two of them so i may have missed some of that spectacle i will recognize though that this entire section is a very subjective take as a boss's enjoyment largely depends on the skill of the player and their build but since this is all about my thoughts on the game my opinion was that they were pretty underwhelming for the most part it felt like instead of focusing on fewer bosses with unique engagements they created more but at the cost of their depth behind the looking last night is the shrine of amana and the aforementioned undead each of these places were created specifically for the dead both the milfonido and the finito watch over these respective places in an attempt to guide the undead to their final destination both of these creatures have interesting backstories as they were created by the old dead one who we know as neato both of them seem to be a reincarnation of nido's soul as if he created them we would have seen them in dark souls 1 but maybe they didn't plan that far ahead when making the games regardless it is a nice detail and finally gives us some actual story regarding neato so i was more than happy to listen to it it also continues to reinforce the old one's soul descriptions that mention how their souls still hold power over the land as the power of nito and his obsession with all things death are still utilized to this day as for what they specifically do it seems like the milfenido enchant or comfort the dead via song as their singing can be heard throughout the level and the finito are grave wardens who watch over the dead both of these groups seem to revolve around comforting the dead so maybe nito was a lot more like the rotten than i had initially thought at the very end of the crypt is velvet's dad and while the boss fight was great what really piqued my attention was his soul and the items acquired from that soul firstly his soul is a dark purple and black color this is the same as the dlc bosses from dark souls 1. i originally thought that this was made to distinguish the dlc from the main game but it wasn't until dark souls 2 that i realized that the soul's shape has actual meaning this is an image of a normal bossel in this game next is from one of the great ones and the other is of those affected by the darkness both manus and the royal aegis have the same soul meaning they're both affected by the darkness and that's due in part to him being down here since vendrick locked himself away in the crypt another detail that is interesting about veldested here is that his soul can buy miracles specifically the sacred oath miracle which is used by warriors who once served the god of sun so it seems like the royal aegis belonged to the same covenant as solaire however we can see that this miracle has either been warped or is unable to be casted as he never actually uses this in the fight and instead buffs himself with dark magic further showing how dark his soul has become after the royal aegis we can meet vendrick and if you expected some grand entrance then you're playing the wrong game just like when the most powerful being in the game's world is reduced to a hollow and mindless state vendrick's condition actually seems to be much worse as gwyneth retains some of his combat abilities but vendrick can barely swing his sword if he choose to fight him all is not lost though for our king as if we return with the ashen mistart we can peer into his memories and be able to talk with vendrick prior to his hollowing do you intend to link the fire then you must first take the throne prove your worth find the ancient crowns seek adversity and they will be yours vendrick tells us to seek the crowns these crowns belong to three rulers and also happen to be r3dlc these dlcs not only provide us with additional lore regarding other kingdoms but also what caused these kingdoms to collapse when we finish each dlc we can gain a crown and after obtaining said crown we can talk to vendrick for more dialogue some of the dialogue is relevant later but a common theme throughout his speeches is the idea that we're given a choice all throughout dark souls 1 we were told to link the flame and that if we failed the age of dark would arise and that would be the end of the world but king vendrick is more than content with you making your own choice this goes back to what we discussed before vendrick didn't want an age of fire or an age of dark he just wanted to find a way to break the curse this also ties into his brother aldia and some of his dialogue when we meet him again all men trust fully but is this so wrong the construction of assad and yet definitely the most fascinating character in this game like vendrick he is completely aware that he is unable to change the world in their current state so he just observes and sees what happens aldia says that the joy of life is warm and splendid but it's a facade as the undead curse will eventually come back but because of that warmth that life brings us are we intent on shattering this illusion we live in and spoiling this false life we have or are we content with our lives and embrace the warmth and pleasure that comes with it knowing full well that it's a lie aldia just like the game wants you to actually make a choice and not blindly follow what some random person will tell us use your own experiences your own knowledge and your own beliefs to come to an answer the way this was crafted was absolutely brilliant and it shows how impressive the writing of this game truly is but before we get to the dlc and obtain the crowns we need to talk about the rest of the content as to actually get the ash and mist heart item we need to travel to aldi's keep in the dragon shrine both aldia and vendrick sought to cure the curse but had different methods of doing so vendrick shunned the undead as he wanted them as far away from the kingdom as possible that's why he threw them in the undead prison of lost bastille in here are hundreds of undead including some volatile variants as these were created by aldia whereas vendrick shunned the undead aldia embraced them as he felt the key to breaking the curse was within the undead themselves but he didn't welcome them with open arms as they were all subjected to his various experiments but aldia went even further with these tests and didn't just focus on the undead but other species he even recreated multiple dragons a race of beings thought to be extinct by now despite what their names imply though both the guardian dragon and the ancient dragon aren't actually dragons the guardian dragon soul can allow us to purchase the drake wing greatsword which states that the drakes are likely descendants of ancient dragons this implies that this is actually a drake and not a dragon furthermore we know the dragons especially the original dragons are gone as kalameet was the last of the ancient dragons this is still true as the ancient dragon in dark souls 2 isn't a dragon as it drops a soul of a giant this thing used to be a giant and was somehow configured by aldia through rigorous experiments to look like an ancient dragon to get the actual ancient dragon soul we need to use the ashen mist heart again but this time in freyja's boss arena as it allows us to see the memories of the dead dragon hanging from the ceiling this memory seems to show the original resting place of this dragon before it somehow made it down here there's not a whole lot to learn from this place other than the fact that these large broken structures look similar to the ones outside aldia's keep there's only one place in the world that we know that has giant structures like this it is my belief that this is ash lake it might not be the entirety of ash lake as we don't really know how far these trees went but it seems to be at least some part of it in regards to time this is most likely during the war between gwyn and the dragons ash lake existed back then but it wasn't the ash lake that we're familiar with as if you remember it was all gray before fire was born so the memory was during the war with the ancient dragons and the present day location of aldia's keep is where some part of ash lake used to be with all the areas covered we can head to the dlc and it's advised to finish all the bosses and content you missed before going which is why i retrace my steps and discover the locations of the dark lurker and the old dragon slayer i didn't really find their stories that interesting but i figured i would cover them before we continue the old dragon's lair seems to be someone who is using orenstein's armor as a way to uphold his legacy as not only does ornstein have other plans which we'll learn about in dark souls 3. some have claimed that this is a fragment of orenstein's old soul that now possesses the armor which would connect with the running theme of old souls from the past games coming to the present just like with the four great ones as for the dark lurker there's pretty much nothing we know about this being at all their soul states that they're a remnant of some ancient dissipated being and the color of their soul is not dark implying that they weren't born or consumed by the abyss like the royal aegis or manus they also look very similar to these beings in the undead crypt that spawn when the bells are rung given the color of the dark lurker's soul it's possible that this being was actually here to fight against the abyss similar to artorius but there is very little evidence to support this theory but now we can officially start the dlc dark souls 2 eventually release with three additional pieces of content the crown of the sunken king the crown of the old iron king and the crown of the ivory king given the disjointed nature of these dlcs they could be played in any order as they don't contradict one another but we'll just go in the order of release the crown of the sunken king starts near the shrine beside the rotten's boss room and entering the shrine will take us to shovel the sanctum city upon entering we are greeted by not only a gorgeous view of the underground city but also a dragon with a giant spear through its chest this dragon is sin long ago a race of people found sin sleeping in these caves and because they had most likely never seen a dragon before they worshiped him as a god these people ended up building a city around the dragon with the rulers of the kingdom being the sunken king and his queen alana but something happened a leader by the name of sir yorg found the underground city and mounted a siege against its inhabitants with the intention of slaying the dragon they were guarding sir jorg and his knights believed that killing dragons was a way to obtain a true understanding of life so they hunted it down after making it past all their defenses sir yorg was face to face with sin himself and that giant spear in his chest was from him but clearly sin lived this wound and that's because upon awakening from his slumber he released a giant cloud of poison that coated the entire city that may also explain why the black gulch is covered in this poisonous green liquid since it's right next to the city but there's no way to confirm before we fight sin though we have to fight alana so somehow despite the poison and the attack from sir york she managed to live well this might be due to her true form according to her boss soul and weapon we can piece together that when the abyss dissipated it was broken into fragments and eventually these fragments came to create a life meaning that elana is the daughter of manus the reason the abyss was broken was that the chosen undead defeated manus back in dark souls 1 and since he was called the father of the abyss that would make alana his daughter clearly she poses a threat to more than just shova so we need to put her down after her death is when we gain access to sin as a final fight sin wasn't too bad his unique mechanic where the poison from his breath can break the durability of your weapon which could possibly kill the entire run if you're not careful the only issue is that this seems to do an insane amount of durability damage as my banded axe with only 50 durability was destroyed in a few hits i'm not entirely sure if 50 is on the low end of durability but going through all the weapons i picked up across my whole playthrough they were all between 40 and 70 so if anything i should be right in the middle this wouldn't have been that bad though if sin didn't act like the guardian dragon and just stayed put for more than a few seconds i think you could see from the gameplay the amount of chances i have to actually hit this thing are extremely low i think what makes shovel so engrossing is the location how do you possibly build a giant civilization underground and for what reason that's at least what i was thinking when going into the dlc and while i got my answer i wasn't entirely satisfied with it one reason why is down to dialogue is there is no npcs in this dlc to talk or converse with we can't gain any new information as all the people that could have been npcs are now just walking corpses given that sin poisoned the whole city i wonder if adding one npc at the very beginning of the level who's the only survivor of the attack would have been a better idea as they could have provided the player with additional information surrounding the city such as why they worship the dragon or how they managed to build all these structures because in its current state it feels a bit unfinished the crown of the old iron king is our second dlc and is of course based around the old iron king from the main game this dlc takes place in one of the largest towers he erected called the broom tower to find the crown we need to traverse the entire tower all the way down to the bottom which was incredibly tedious there were a lot of traps and enemies that can be very annoying to deal with but given that the dlc seemed to want to spike up the difficulty these additions kind of made sense this tediousness also added to the realism of the level as it takes quite a long time to scale this entire tower which is logical given its size and the tower itself isn't just empty space as all the space is being used for some sort of purpose whether it's the smaller guys carrying these giant barrels or the vast amount of machinery within the tower that was made to produce iron it also fits in well with the theme of the old iron king's obsession with iron and how he gained a lot of power from his production of iron this dlc however adopts the same storytelling as the sunken king and that there are no npcs to talk to throughout the entirety of its run time but what makes the broom tower different from shova is that we already have numerous levels and items filled with lore about the iron king shovel was a completely new area with zero reference to the main story which is why i enjoyed it a bit less regarding the npc interaction than the broom tower even though the first boss is technically another smelter demon the real first boss is actually the fume knife i have zero issues regarding this fight i actually thought it was perfect i've stated this many times before but i prefer the fast combat of the future from soft games as opposed to the slower more methodical nature of the early souls games it's not that one is objectively better than the other it's just a personal preference of mine and just like with artorias and manus the fume knight is another boss that is slowly ramping up the speed of its attacks they aren't incredibly fast especially by modern souls game standards where a 10-hit combo can be finished within mere seconds but the fume knight is definitely a far more faster paced fight compared to the rest of the game and this even continues with the other boss in this dlc which is sir elon it's just like the other boss fights of this game where you have to look at your health stamina and both your and the boss's positioning all at the same time and then calculate what to do given the parameters except much faster i understand this is not everyone's cup of tea but it's most definitely mine and even better the fume knight has actual ties to a previous character from the main game king vendrick had two trusted knights who he considered his left and right arm one was valdistat and the other was the fume knight however the two clashed which led to the few night's defeat what's interesting is that if you defeat the royal aegis purchase his helmet and then wear it during the fight the fume knight will start his second phase almost immediately showing that he still has a grudge against him as for the fume knight himself he wandered the land in search of power and eventually came across the broom tower and met nadalia the bride of ash nadalia would have been the queen of the old iron king but she arrived at the keep after he died she fell into a deep despair because of this and ended up separating her soul across the broom tower inside these ashent idols which caused the tower to be covered in this thick black fog this fog has the power to control those who wish to serve her and kill those who refused when the few net arrived instead of destroying the fog like he could have done he actually just opted to be consumed by it which is why he sits at the bottom of broome tower defending the remains of nadalia since she has the ability to create this black fog and her soul is colored in darkness it is once again safe to assume that she is another daughter of manus if you're noticing a theme here then you're catching on to the point of these dlcs each one of them is centered around a kingdom that a daughter of manus inhabited and this goes for our final dlc but before we leave the broom tower there's a secret room we can discover with sir elon's armor and by using the ash and mistart we can go back in time to when he was stationed at the tower this leads to the boss fight we discussed earlier but it's a memory and if we take what we know about the memories and apply it here we can discover even more lore about sir elon if we assume that the unknown warrior that best of the giant lord is us since we went back in time then we're also responsible for killing sir elon so that statement i said earlier about sir elon leaving to search for new lands was possibly a lie as it may have been told by the old iron king so that his soldiers don't uncover his true fate which makes things a lot more sinister than they seemed our third and final dlc is the crown of the ivory king the ivory king was the ruler of the kingdom elaim loyce upon entering we can see that it is covered in snow and given that there isn't any snow in draen lake we must be pretty far from the original kingdom as we approach though we are told to leave this voice tells us that the old chaos still hungers and that we are forbidden from entering clearly we're not gonna listen and charge headfirst through the front gate eventually we'll meet with the first boss of the dlc ava this is one of seven pets that the ivory king kept in his kingdom each one seemed to have a specific role in the kingdom as ava was tasked with guarding the king's child of dark this child of dark is alsana and as you would expect she is our third daughter of manus but her story is a lot less destructive when alsana was born she felt fear this is because she was a manifestation of manus fears all the daughters of the abyss are a manifestation of something nadalia seemed to be manus despair elana was possibly a manifestation of manus wrath and alsana was his fears but when alsana was born the king managed to find her and welcomed her into his kingdom he provided the comfort she desperately needed and was kind enough to not shun her away even after he discovered her true origins it's because of this kindness that she stayed in lam lois and continued to fulfill the ivory king's wish which was to hold back the old chaos the old chaos is the flame of chaos the same one created by the witch of izalith it's unknown when this was discovered by the ivory king but once he did find this ancient monstrosity him and his fellow knights set out to extinguish it but they were defeated as none had come back alsana wants us to defeat the old chaos so that we can uphold the mission of the ivory king to do this though we're going to need some other knights of elaine loyce as they are absolutely necessary if you want the fight to be possible once we're all set we can jump down into the old chaos again just like we did with lost izalith and this boss is absolute perfection few fights in the souls games actually get better with summons and the ivory king is one of them i felt like i actually had to apply strategy to an encounter which was the first time the series has required me to do that i don't mean strategy in the sense of reading the boss's moves and making sure how to punish and win as that's just baked into the overall combat of the encounters but i mean the actual decision making i had to employ such as which enemy to attack and when which was something i did not expect i would be doing going into this fight i was running around finding knights who were outnumbered and assisting them or if it was the opposite side of the spectrum i would add myself into the mix making the fight easier this is almost necessary for the fight as well since you're going to be doing the most amount of damage compared to all the other knights so your decision in this fight will largely impact how the second phase will go i'm not entirely sure if the knights can die in the first phase given they have an obscene amount of health but if they can it just further adds to my point having two giant teams of warriors fighting against one another is one of the greatest things i've ever experienced and is without a doubt the best fight this game has to offer from the actual fight to the layout of the arena which is engulfed in the fire from the flame of chaos it was just all perfect and would have been such a great way to end this trilogy of additional content but never in my life have i seen a dlc do so well all throughout the entirety of its run time only to fumble at the finish line the frigid outskirts is an optional location that the player can discover towards the end of the dlc and it is awful it's not only painstakingly difficult just from the design alone it might actually be the worst level in any souls game ever made the bonfire before entering the coffin is the only bonfire in the area meaning you have to go from one end of the map to the other just to get to the boss fight which is just two more of the ivory king's pets their lore is thankfully super basic and not important at all as their job was just to hunt exiles that were presumably sent out of the kingdom and into the frigid outskirts this area would not be nearly as hard if the horses didn't keep spawning every few feet not only wasting your time but draining your estus in the process making the boss fight that much harder it's just an awful location and i think the more that i talk about it the closer i get to going insane so we're just gonna cut it right here as a complete package the dlcs were pretty solid there were things in each that i found a little unpleasant like the method of storytelling or an entire area but there was many things i liked about the dlcs and due to this confliction i can't say that together they're perfect but they're nowhere near close to being bad it's hard to judge though whether this was an actual improvement over artorius of the abyss considering that was one dlc with half the content that played out over half the time this is also due to the souls games business model if people complain about anything regarding the dlcs of the souls games it's that they're too short rather than too long whereas many games like to make additional content with run times of up to 6 to 20 hours dark souls is pretty much content with two it never overstays its welcome in fact it sometimes leaves too early and doing this gives us less time to learn about the dlcs in the locations they reside in but as i said at the top of the section as a complete package they were pretty great with all the crowns in our inventory we can revisit vendrick who will now provide us with some very important dialogue the abyss once had form but then dissipated and yet traces of its existence endured each fragment thirsting for power spread dark with no relent my dear chandra was one such fragment so we now know the fourth and final daughter of manus the chandra the queen of draen lake the chandra is a manifestation of manus feelings of power and want she came to this land in order to covet the first flame this explains why vendrick was in the undead crypt vendrick left the kingdom because he discovered nashandra's true origins and not only locked himself away in the crypt which was guarded by one of his loyal knights but he also hid his soul as vendrick doesn't drop this upon his death it's hidden behind a secret door only accessible to those who are human and nashandra never truly was that's why she's been so adamant that we succeed vendrick she figures that we'll blindly follow her order so that we can clear all the obstacles in her path because once we finally get to the throne of want and defeat the knights guarding it she appears similar to the ivory king i found this fight leagues better when the summons were included mostly due to the narrative aspect since both benhart and vengarl were helped due to me so it's only right that they return the favor her boss design is impeccable and continues to uphold the standard that the final bosses of the game have but not even nashandra is the actual final boss aldia is the actual final boss assuming you fulfilled a few tasks along the way which is just meeting him a few times in specific locations and then specifically killing vendrick before nashandra as a final boss fight though it felt like a bit of a letdown i think nashandra had way more intensity and narrative weight behind her aldi has been this ominous figure that just shows up says a bunch of and then leaves and now all of a sudden i'm supposed to care that we're fighting him i get why he's fighting us he's supposed to test our might to see if we're truly going to be the next monarch of the throne of want but that doesn't make it right the same could be said for nashandra given she makes an appearance a whole two times in this game but that seemed to be intentional as the reveal of nashandra was supposed to be this mysterious event which makes this next part even more confusing as the emerald herald can literally spoil for us that nashandra will be coming for us i completely missed her on the way down so i never got to hear this which ultimately made the impact of this cutscene hit harder which begs the question of why it was mentioned in the first place i find it hard to believe that many people miss nashandra at the top of the castle so they're well aware of who she is so just keep the mystery hidden until the final moments it kills the entire impact of the scene if we're just told right before entering that she's gonna fight us after the defeat of the three bosses we can select our ending and while this game does have two endings what these endings represent is rather interesting our first ending is entering the throne of want this is sort of like the kiln of the first flame just a little bit different it allows us to choose the fate of the world but we never get to see our choice it is both the age of fire and the age of dark ending together it's never known what our character chooses but that's the part of the role play when it comes to rpgs we make up the rest of the story did our character choose fire did they choose dark or did they do something else and that something else is following in the footsteps of vendrick and aldea we leave the throne and search for an answer to the undead curse we don't know if we'll succeed but it's worth a try anyway doing this is sort of like operating a dig site yeah vendrick and aldia spent decades digging trying to find a solution and failed but now thanks to them we know of a decade's worth of methods that won't work bringing us closer and closer to finding a cure for the curse and that's the beauty of the second ending it's not only in perfect sync with the rest of the game as it continues to make the curse the main plot of the story but it gives us an option that we as players hadn't really considered up until this point dark souls did a phenomenal job of grooming us into believing that there were only two choices but dark souls 2 refutes this claim and as a third as a final note dark souls 2 was a brilliant game i went into this game with mild expectations but was blown away by how impressive the story was and how surprisingly easy it was to grasp many questions are still left unanswered and will never be answered but i left this game with an understanding of its story its themes and what emotions it had intended to invoke in me and that is incredibly admirable but the world of dark souls isn't over the fire of the world will fade once more and yet despite the impending doom of the age of dark getting closer and closer no one seems to care but we'll talk about that in dark souls 3. dark souls 3 is a perfect game due to the way a book ends the entire series but the only reason that i can say that is because of how much this game is being held up by its predecessors dark souls 3 on its own is still a good game but without all the effort put into the story from dark souls 1 and 2 its narrative wouldn't be as impactful that's the beauty of the dark souls trilogy it's one of the few series out there that truly feels like a tightly knit game many games get sequels but not many truly feel like a proper sequel just a game set in the same universe a year or so after the previous game it might make callbacks to the past game but not enough to feel like what occurred in that game was important the dark souls trilogy and its repetitive ideas make the games feel properly connected the age of fire the undead curse hollowing and so much more have been a prominent part of the series since its inception which is why judging these games individually based on their stories is so difficult as each of these games relies on each other to actually make their story have an impact dark souls 2 and 3 could not exist without dark souls 1 and not just because of its world building and important characters but because it's the game that showed us what the age of fire is and why it's important we then took this information into dark souls 2 which showed us how the age of fire is not all it's cooped up to be and how as all the years go by people are starting to embrace the fire less and less this all comes to an end to dark souls 3 a game that is purely focused on the age of dark and why the first flame needs to go each one of these games provides a crucial step in our journey and without even one of them every other game loses its meaning we already talked about the previous two games and what they attempt to show to the player and all these themes ideas and plots all converge towards dark souls 3 creating one of the best endings in a series i've ever seen and today i will explain why so without wasting any more time let's get started so ironically for a game that's going to be about the age of darkness and how much death and decay the current age has caused it starts off with an incredibly intense soundtrack it's not even been 10 seconds and this electrified feeling of exhilaration seeps into your body dark souls is back and it's time to kick some ass this feeling continues right into the intro cinematic and dark souls 3 weighs 0 time getting into the story this is the first time in the trilogy where the game outright tells you who the main bosses are which are the abyss watchers altered saint of the deep and yorm the giant there is also a fourth that isn't mentioned but we'll discuss them a bit later just like before it's four beings who will need to be dealt with in order to succeed but instead of them being the four lord soul users or the four great ones it's the four lords of cinder the question is why are they so important well oddly enough the game tells you but the pure spectacle of the intro is so hypnotizing you might not even realize what was just said according to the opening narration the bells only toll when threatened the reason they're being threatened is because the fire is fading again but furthermore it's because someone doesn't want to link the flame that person being prince lothric since the prince doesn't want to link the flame the bells of awakening revived previous lords of cinder from past kingdoms each of these aforementioned beings i mentioned earlier were people who link the flame in their lifetimes the bells assume that if they have linked it already then they'll do it again but they all refused the abysswatchers aldridge and yorm don't want to in the last ditch ever to make sure the fire is linked the bells of awakening have awoken other beings who are unkindled people who have failed to link the fire in the past but are now given a second chance and we are one such person known as the ashen one our job is to defeat the lords of cinder and take their ashes to their thrones as if they won't come back willingly then their ashes will serve as a substitute this is the plot of the game no small objective in between like finding vendrick or ringing the bells right away from the get-go we're tasked with killing these beings and licking the flame assuming you've played the previous games already then you've heard this story twice before and already know what you're getting into which is why our first boss isn't even 5 minutes into the game in dark souls 1 it took around the same time to fight the asylum demon but the game also taught us about our inventory and weaponry but also showed us that we can converse with npcs and used in estus flask dark souls 2 took a bit longer with this as the first boss wasn't for a couple hours and the basic tutorial can take a bit of time to run through in dark souls 3 we start with the estus flask get all our gear and start our journey immediately there is no handholding here as the game assumes you've done this all before and don't need much of a refresher the reason why they put udyx in here is because he's supposed to test our strength not just the ashen one's strength but ours since dark souls 3 underwent some drastic changes in regards to its combat and for those who have noticed yes i'm using an axe again it wasn't until starting this game that i realized i'd used an axe for all three of them so i figured it'd be quite comical if i beat the entire trilogy with the same weapon before killing utyx though we'll see him become engulfed in this black form this is called the pus of man this is a unique disease that is taking over the kingdom and it originates from the abyss similar to how manus humanity went wild causing him to become the ferocious beast that we know in game it's possible that this is happening to other hollows but on a much grander scale as this won't be the last time we see this pus of man in the game after udyx we can take the coiled sword from his body and use it to create the bonfire at the new firelink shrine i absolutely love the design of firelink shrine from the moment you walk in and see all the thrones lined up around the bonfire you feel a sense of comfort it's definitely my favorite across the entire series but i loathe its location firelink shrine feels so disconnected from the rest of the world even though majula was on the outskirts of dragon lake castle it at least became a nexus for all the various paths that the player could traverse to the cherry on top here is that we can't even travel to the first location we're forced to teleport to it it just further shuts this place away from the rest of the kingdom there's no incentive to explore the other areas of the level as we've already seen everything it has i never understood why the series slowly moved towards this idea but it seemed to be a massive hit amongst the team as this would be used in other games going forward from a pure gameplay perspective the firelink shrine of dark souls 3 also reverts the changes in dark souls 2 to keep things more simplistic andre is back and will handle anything regarding our weapons from upgrades to infusions and the shrine handmaid becomes our all-encompassing merchant so no more clutter like in dark souls 2. we also have our new level up lady who is just the fire keeper she doesn't have any unique backstory like the emerald herald but her condition does spark a few questions it seems that all the fire keepers have some sort of condition that afflicts them anastasia the lady under firelink shrine will initially be mute and cannot be spoken to the darkmoonitus in anor londo has a disfigured appearance which is why she hides it from us with her armor and this fire keeper is blind this has always been fascinating to me as i've never been able to fully understand why this is the case it's possible that this is a sort of rite of passage and the fire keepers are showing their willingness to the flame by giving up something but what they lose seems to differ across the games it's possible that this is just a coincidence but there's also an npc in the game we'll meet called irina who tries to be a fire keeper and is also blind fire keepers being blind only occurs in dark souls 3. so i've always wondered why blindness is occurring now instead of across the series it's something we never get an answer to but definitely a fascinating topic to discuss speaking of the characters in firelink shrine i want to talk about the npcs though before we embark on our journey third time's the charm as they say since the npcs this game are handled way better than in the previous two titles my issue with each game is that dark souls 1 kept replaying the same fate of hollowing across all of its characters which started losing its value very quickly and dark souls 2 seemed to just make characters for their rewards rather than their stories but dark souls 3 seems to fix this issue the quantity of the npcs has been drastically reduced as they're only around 27 or so in the main game there's also very little overlap in the merchants as each school of magic has one designated npc with the exception of pyromancy and while greyrat does have a pretty useless inventory for the most part since he's a thief you can actually send him to find gear which will increase his options this was so much better as i didn't have to run around the base finding the one merchant who sells the item i need furthermore the actual quests of the npcs were much more enjoyable this time around there was 5 standout characters for dark souls 3 but one interesting change with this game though is that the npcs connect with the main content both sigurd and henry have a connection with a specific lord of cinder and yurius questline ends up becoming one of the endings of the game i really liked this idea as so far the npcs have been separate from the main bosses so it was nice to see it all intertwine with one another it'll be a lot easier to explain what their quest lines are alongside the main content so we'll hold off on this for now which means the only other two that we have to talk about that have a more traditional quest line are irina and cirrus as we talked about before irina is blind and this is because she came from her land of kareem to become a fire keeper you might recognize the name kareem as oswald the trek and the marvelous chester from dark souls 1 are all from kareem the reason we find irina here in this cell is because she's filled and hasn't become a fire keeper yet due to this failure she believed that she was unfit to tend the flames and fell into a deep depression the knight guarding her is aegon of kareem and has a sworn duty to protect her no matter her state of being to progress her questline we need to buy her spells if we buy her miracles then we'll be able to give her the enlightenment she needed and will eventually become a firekeeper at firelink shrine gameplay-wise she's pretty useless in this state is not only is there already a fire keeper but she's also hundreds of feet away from the player as opposed to the actual fire keeper who is right next to you if we however only buy her dark miracles we further progress the ferocity of the humanity with inside of her causing her to be consumed by its dark power this turns aegon hostile who will fight you for betraying her she will eventually start to become worried and asks us to touch her again so that she can tell who is nearby but eventually she will not recognize our touch and ask to be killed it's a genuinely sad outcome and this emotion is heightened further because we're the ones that caused it hedy instead just kept purchasing her regular miracles we could have saved her from her impending fate it's a quest line of two extremes one where she gets everything she wants and one where she loses everything and it all depends on you as for sira she starts out as some random person who appears at firelink shrine sir seems to be a darkmoon blade since she uses the dark moonblade spell which can only be acquired by those a part of the covenant but yorshka the leader of said covenant states that we'll be the only knight in the group if we join furthermore sira says that she is a former servant of the divinity which may imply that she was a darkmoon blade but left some time later as for why she left it seems to be related to the two people we fight against throughout her questline who are creighton and hodrick creighton is the same one from dark souls 2 although this does not imply that he was the canon winner between him and pate as this was probably thousands of years ago and i'm assuming that creighton is also unkindled as he most likely was revived alongside us cyrus says that creighton was a part of the rosaria's fingers a rival covenant and one that she despises and hodrick seems to be her grandfather the reason we know this is because she calls out to him before the fight and when defeated she says that she's pleased that her granddad can rest in peace hodrick seems to have gone mad at some point and sirius wanted to put him out of his misery she has a short but sweet questline and the family connection to hodrick was quite the shock the question still remains though what is the sunless realms because her full name is cirrus of the sunless realms it's nice to speculate about it but there isn't much information to go off of and this is a running trend throughout the series and personally something i'm not a fan of there are so many locations in the game that we learn about like astora karim katarina mira alken venon so many more but there's no in-depth lore about them hell most of them don't even give us a service level idea of what they're about this is not a dark souls 3 issue and more of a series issue as the devs have been given three chances to develop some of these places and from software has just refused to do so many people including myself have tried to speculate on more details regarding these kingdoms but there's so little to go off of that it's not even worth it their inclusion in the game was probably because the team wanted to add a bit of flavor to the world to not only show that the main kingdom isn't the only kingdom in the dark souls universe but also that people from all over are flocking to this kingdom in search of something important it just feels like a wasted opportunity to barely mention these places after three whole games as a whole dark souls 3 has some great quest lines and i would go as far to say that it's the most polished out of the entire series dark souls 3 recognized what was wrong with the previous two entries and made sure not to repeat those same mistakes again with the npcs done we can now resume our objective which as a reminder is to defeat the lords of cinder and use their ashes as kindling so that we may travel to the kiln of the first flame and re-link the fire to do this though we actually need five lords of cinder the abyss watchers yorm prince lothric aldridge and ludleth the reason i said four earlier is because ludleth is actually the only one who complies with the rules as he's already at firelink shrine when we arrive loveless throne says that he was exiled from his homeland the reason why he was exiled was because of his art of transposition for gameplay purposes this allows us to take the boss holes and make weapons out of them just like the past games what's odd though is that when he dies he drops the skull ring which talks about it being called the soul feeder and how it was this insatiable beast that hungered for souls due to the ambiguity of his past it's led to many theories such as ludwig being a soul feeder himself but was at one point defeated which is why he has no legs and possibly can't fit on his throne it is also entirely possible that loveleth is just someone who wants to do the right thing and has no ill intentions but the skull ring definitely leaves a lot up to the imagination to get to the other four lords we'll need to use the bonfire at firelink shrine which will take us to the high wall of lothric and it is absolutely stunning you're immediately greeted with an entire view of the castle and it's a breathtaking view but it's also an illusion the kingdom of lothric is riddled with corpses and those who survived other became hollows or are still seen defending a lifeless kingdom lothric is governed by the three pillars of rule the knights who protect the kingdom the scholars who run the grand archives and the high priestess who also served as prince lothric's wet nurse those who abide by these rules are the lothric knights but these wingnite variants are said to be heretics as they don't accept their rules this is because of gertrude the heavenly daughter in the grand archives we can find a birdcage cell with a dead body in it this is assumed to be gertrude she was one of the queen's holy maidens although depending on some item description she may also have been her daughter one day gertrude was visited by an angel and through this was able to establish the angelic faith of lothric seeing as this isn't a part of the regular three pillars gertrude was taken and imprisoned those who agreed with her teachings though band together to defeat the current rulers of lothric which led to a massive civil war out of all the three kingdoms we visited so far in the trilogy the kingdom of lothric is easily in the worst state this condition that we see the castle in may also symbolize the world of dark souls itself i'll elaborate more on this idea later but it's my personal theory that not only did our characters from dark souls 1 and 2 link the flame but every person in between these games did so as well if we go back to the intro the narrator says that lothric is where the transitory lands of the lords converge meaning this isn't like the past games in dark souls 1 all the main bosses were within lord ren already but in dark souls 3 the lands of these lords have been forced together it's unclear how this is even possible but it may go back to the first flame the world of dark souls is dying it's a shadow of its former self places are being buried destroyed and created in an endless loop the intro does a great job of showing this but the one area that truly opened my eyes to this was drag heap this place is covered in rubble and buildings that span so far and wide that you can't even tell what the buildings used to be or when they were built we talked about how time was convoluted in dark souls 1 but in dark souls 3 this has been progressed even further lands are being moved together creating a tidal wave of rubble and it's all because the first flame if you watched the past videos you may have noticed how worse things have gotten throughout the series and i believe this is because the first flame hasn't been snuffed out people are still clinging on to that illusion of life as aldia put it and are willing to stay in the comfort of what they know rather than step out into the unknown and because of that the world has gotten even worse each dark souls game has tried to push the player toward one specific idea the age of fire in one the breaking of the curse in two and the age of dark and three everyone in dark souls 3 is just doing what they continue to do because it's all they know some are blindly following their faith and others are continuing to work on their craft this game truly conveys the attitude and the effects of a dying world one that is practically begging to be put out of its misery it's basically saying look at all of this in-game look at the destruction of the kingdoms the ruins of the world and the people who inhabit it do you think any of them are truly happy to be alive right now not even the lords of cinder beings who have insurmountable power don't even want to link the flame it lays all of this out for you and asks you to choose which is quite a heavy burden choosing to go against the status quo that has been said for who knows how long is a very hard decision but at least we don't have to make that choice now as the game will blinds at us again and create another boss encounter for us to be hypnotized by we'll talk about it for later though as he does have ties to another boss later in the game after vort will be taken to the undead settlement this place functions like the undead burg in dark souls 1 as this place was the residence of many of the kingdom's undead but one thing we'll see immediately upon entry is this massive pile of corpses at the end of the bridge these beings are pilgrims that are most likely from the kingdom of londor as the only survivor is yol of londor he is related to yuria however so we will have to discuss him a bit later as we explore the undead settlement we can see that this place is in just as bad of shape as lothric castle bodies are piled up everywhere and some have even been put into cages this land has also been subjected to various curses and because of this many of the settlements inhabitants sealed them away in a spirit tree but would end up cursing the tree itself which would lead to the creation of the cursed rotted great wood during the second phase the great wood will slam into the ground and will discover the true resting place of all the settlements hollows in the aptly named pit of hollows it's unclear though whether or not the hollows that were dumped here were alive or not upon arrival but since the mound maker's covenant is down here it's possible that they were thrown in here alive and all fought to the death which would explain the plethora of bones covering the walls but it could also be that these people actually banded together to create the mound maker's covenant regardless it's clear that their fates were sealed the moment they were thrown in while the curse rotted great wood is to the left of the dilapidated bridge if we instead go to the right we'll make it to the road of sacrifices and subsequently fairing keep which leads us to our first lord of cinder the abyss watchers fair and keep is rather interesting as not only is it the resting place for the abyss watchers but it may also be the ruins of oolacile in this area we can find the golden scroll and the dusk crown items that have ties to ulysil and we can also find dead mushrooms and maybe even the final resting place of elizabeth if this taller mushroom is assumed to be her this would also fit narratively with the abyss watchers as they were a part of an organization dedicated to fighting the abyss and seeing his manus was located under ulysses this would tie together quite nicely the abyss watchers were the main fighting force of a group called the undead legion of pharan who took inspiration from artorius and dedicated their lives to fighting the abyss but their group numbers seem to be much larger than they seem as these monstrous beings are seen guarding the abyss watchers boss arena they even managed to recruit one of the twin crystal sages that is said to have betrayed his scholarly friends of the grand archives to ally with the undead legion as for the abyss watchers themselves it said that they all shared the blood of the wolf most likely in reference to this wolf found in the area and used its blood to increase their power and their power was unmatched is not only were they able to hunt together like a pack of wolves but they've been known to bury an entire kingdom at the slightest sign of the abyss this group would eventually link the flame presumably an attempt to cast away the abyss for good but with their main force gone the rest of the forces dwindled and left the undead legion as there was nothing else to do but as we know the abyss can't be destroyed that easily it eventually came back and went unchecked since none of the legion were around and managed to turn their land into a festering swamp these monstrosities that we see may have been legion soldiers who were corrupted by the abyss when the abyss watchers awoke they came to the realization that their home was overrun and their mission was unsuccessful and while it's not stated when this happened at some point some of the members became tainted with the abyss itself which leads to the cutscene before the boss fight where they're all fighting one another as they're trying to fight back against the abyss but since they're all undead they're constantly being revived so they're stuck in this never-ending battle between each other which is likely why they won't link the flame doing it the first time didn't stop the abyss and they have more important things to do than sit on their throne and let the abyss consume the world i absolutely love the abyss watchers and not just from a lore perspective but also as a boss what really sold the fight for me was the hints of artorias that were spread throughout their move sets the undead legion took inspiration from artorias so it's only right that they mimic his fighting style and the fast-paced leaping attacks that they have really reminded me of that fight furthermore this fight's quality increases tenfold once the other members join in as it turns this honorable duel into this chaotic mess you lose all focus during this fight as you're having to keep track of three different abyss watchers who can slide across the arena in a second and the second phase is just as deadly as the last dead abyss watcher consumes the blood of all his brethren in a last-ditch attempt to stop us he's a lot faster than last time and produces flames from his sword which makes the fight even harder it shows how dedicated the group is to their mission and how they'll use anything they can as long as they win similar to how artorias fought us with all his strength and even a broken arm from both a presentation and gameplay perspective the abyss watchers are fantastic lords of cinder and the best way to introduce the player to the sheer power these lords hold behind the abyss watchers is the catacombs of karthus a place that has seemingly no actual kingdom as this karthus is never seen in game but given that wolnir is located down here and is known to be a lord consumed by the abyss maybe the abyss watchers leveled the entire kingdom and while that is an interesting idea to think about what's more important is actually what's underneath the catacombs if we break this bridge and use it as a ladder we can enter the smoldering lake the original location of lost izalith and possibly ash lake in here we can see giant structures that look very similar to arch trees of ash lake and given the geography of lordran ash lake and lost izalith weren't too far from one another so it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that they can exist in the same location if we continue deeper into the lake we'll see dozens of dead demons that resemble the capra taurus and stray demon from dark souls 1. it's very clear that the demon race is dying and that they're struggling to survive we can even see this in this stray demon near farron keep which is covered in stone rather than the flesh and blood that we're used to there's even the old demon king whose boss room is covered in the corpses of his fellow demons he'll try his best to fight the ashen one with all his might but most of his power ran out years ago and as a last resort will release all his flames in a fiery explosion but in doing so he'll lose all the power he's ever consumed and will be unable to fight the demons of dark souls 3 are a dying race and further adds to the theme of death and decay the game is trying to convey kingdoms aren't lavish spectacles of beautiful architecture they're a war zone and the demon race is no longer a formidable foe just a dying breed that won't last another generation the symbolism of this place is beautiful as it shows that everyone is being affected by the progression of time and no one is gaining from having this age continue but not everything needs to have a sad ending as if we explore the rest of the smoldering lake we can find the corpses of a spider and a woman and judging from the tone that is located on her body it seems that quelana found the fair lady and got to spend their last moments with one another it's a wonderful and happy ending quelana got to find her sister who she thought was dead and the fair lady is finally able to die and no longer has to suffer anymore getting back on track to get to our next lord of cinder we need to find irithyll but to gain entry we need to find a specific item that is located in the cathedral of the deep the resting place of aldrich saint of the deep aldridge's story is by far the most vague but also the most detailed amongst the lords of cinder as his story encompasses various other bosses that we've already had the pleasure of meeting years ago aldridge was a common cleric but he would eventually start experiencing visions of a deep sea this deep sea was another form of the abyss and it was located in the lowest possible depths imaginable and form the core components of the world we never get to see the deep sea in game but it seems to be the lowest layer something only aldrich can see he then shared this info with only those he trusted who were his archdeacons mcdonnell royce and klimt they not only kept this information within their inner circle but also encouraged one of aldridge's insatiable urges whether this was something he always had within him or it came about when he saw visions of the deep aldrich had an insatiable urge to consume human flesh the archdeacons encouraged this behavior and used their influence to create an army of followers to not only worship aldrich but also went out and gathered sacrifices for him that's why these evangelists are located in the undead settlement as they are trying to bring the undead to the cathedral so that they may be consumed by aldrich we also learned that he would eat anyone even including children as henry and horus are said to be the only two children who managed to escape aldridge's grasp where henri and horus are located happens to be the road of sacrifices the path that the settlers and evangelists took to get to the cathedral before consumption this cathedral performed all manner of rituals and cleansings in order to purify those who entered its doors after numerous sacrifices the people around aldrich managed to go insane and even though aldrich himself was able to keep his sanity his form would change rapidly as he would eventually become the black sludge that we see in the intro due to his immense power he was used as a lord of cinder but seeing as aldrich was fully consumed by the visions of a deep sea linking the fire would be the opposite of what he had planned so this implies that it was linked against his will they would eventually return aldrich's body to the cathedral to be placed inside the large coffin scene in the deacons of the deep boss fight these deacons were led by the archdeacons we discussed earlier but while aldrich was laying in his coffin another piece was added to the board pontiff sullivan was a former resident of the painted world of ariandel just like the world of dark souls the painted worlds have their own cycles that need to be rekindled in a sense while the pontiff lived in the current painted world of ariandel but felt no reason to continue his life here as he had not experienced any hardship or despair we'll learn about the painting's residents in the dlc but unlike the painted world of ariamis which was a world for all the things the gods feared ariandel was for those who had nowhere else to go and are without purpose sullivan would then set out in search of a purpose and would eventually come across irithyll this place is very relevant to the story as right next to it is on orlando the same one from dark souls 1. from various item descriptions we learned that gwyndolin didn't actually die in dark souls 1 as he is still very much alive in this game now whether or not the chosen undead never fought him or they killed him but he somehow revived himself is unknown and ultimately irrelevant but with gwyndolin being the only god left in anor londo he tried to reach out to those in his extended family in hopes of trying to rebuild the god's rule the only one he managed to find though was yorshka a crossbreed girl similar to priscilla it's unclear what her relationship with gwyndolin was or even her relationship with priscilla was but all we know is that she was content with helping gwyndolin in his objective gwyndolin would also reinstate the darkmoon blades as a way to help protect them from any adversaries one of their knights though happened to be pontiff sullivan who infiltrated its ranks and managed to corrupt all the members he came across he would then end up enacting his plan when gwyndolin was stricken with an illness that left him unable to care for his covenant or city sullivan in one successful swoop managed to imprison yorshka in a nearby tower and throw gwyndolin inside an orlando cathedral allowing him to have complete control of ear though which is how he earned the title of pontiff in order to ensure protection of his new kingdom the pontiff would not only set irretholene lights in various positions as guards create a barrier over the whole city so that no one could enter but also send outrider knights to conquer other lands we've already seen a few outrider nights across the game already but the two most notable knights are vort and the dancer of the boreal valley not much is known about the duo except the fact that the dancer was a daughter from one of the royal families in irithyll whether she served willingly or not is unknown either way both of their fates would end up the same as they were both bestowed a ring given by the pontiff which would end up slowly turning them into these malformed beasts after an unknown amount of time aldrich would reawake again as a lord of cinder and would foresee the world's eventual destruction at the hands of the deep sea due to this premonition though he would neglect the throne and wait for the deep to overcome the world and it was during this waiting that he would dream of the old gods and how they wanted to relink the flame he saw this as a ploy against his own wishes and sought to devour the very gods he then traveled to irithyll decimated the knights guarding the city and forced the pontiff to surrender who gave up control of anor londo allowing aldridge to have an audience with gwyndolin what happened next is what we see during the boss fight we interrupt aldrich mid-consumption who now has to use the barely conscious body of gwyndolin as a weapon to defeat us aldrich seems to have very supernatural powers as his soul when transposed can give us the darkmoon longbow which belonged to gwyndolin but also the lifehunt scythe that belonged to priscilla but interestingly though he never consumed priscilla only dreamed of her from what i can gather it seems that aldridge can acquire abilities from those he consumed and is also able to peer into that person's memories the reason he was able to acquire the life on scythe is because it's a miracle miracles and dark souls are like stories you're essentially reciting a story and using the talisman as a medium for the power so aldridge consumed gwyndolin and dreamt of priscilla during the consumption and then learned the story of the life on scythe and was able to cast it since it's basically just the equivalent of reading a story again earlier i said aldrich had the most detailed story out of the lords of cinder and i wasn't lying his story doesn't just include himself but five other bosses and close to a dozen named characters it is a very long story to wrap your head around but it is the kind of storytelling that got me interested in these games in the first place it showcases all the different events from different points of view and how these characters fit into one cohesive timeline but just as the story is detailed so too is it vague the deep sits on a shelf alongside many of the concepts of the dark souls universe that are barely touched upon in its defense though the deep does have a lot of item descriptions tied to it so we can at least get a better understanding of what its true nature is but seeing as it's never shown to us in game or ever elaborated on further than what we talked about it just becomes another idea in the world of dark souls that leaves a lot open to the interpretation as for the boss fight aldrich was pretty entertaining but i think a much better boss fight in my opinion was pontiff sullivan i've always liked sullivan's design and plus the walk towards him is always very ominous as you don't know what to expect especially when he dashes right at you the moment you get too close ford and the dancer were pretty much on the same level as aldrich in my opinion i still think pontiff ranks higher than all of them but they were really entertaining fights and honestly this opinion i have is pretty much the same for most of the bosses in this game even udyx was an entertaining fight and he was the first boss we ever face it's clear that the quality of the bosses has been raised thanks to dark souls 3 and i think one reason for this was because the team reverted the previous ideas of dark souls 2 and instead focused on the quality again rather than the quantity each fight brought some sort of unique twist so that it never felt like you were in some traditional fight as that's what the enemies were for even fights i dislike due to their lack of difficulty like the deacons are still at least mildly impressive as its leagues better than the congregation from dark souls 2 which i'm assuming was the inspiration for it those enemies between the bosses are allowed to have basic attacks and a combo or two but the bosses are where all the creative talent is supposed to be spilled into it felt like there was real passion behind these bosses again from their designs to their movesets and that's one of the reasons dark souls 3 is held in such a high regard within the franchise the other reason may also be down to the locations themselves there is beauty and destruction as they say and dark souls 3 proves time and time again how this is possible the catacombs the cathedral and the smoldering lake are all great examples of this but the way the game shifts this idea and instead showcases beauty through architecture again through the lens of things like irithyll and anor londo is genius even the smallest things like looking over a ledge and seeing the rest of the kingdom or just walking through the hallway that leads to gwyn's tomb are beautiful not only because we get to see some of these locations in a new more updated light but because from software has always expertly crafted its levels to showcase these moments for us that's one of the reasons anor londo was so beloved amongst the community is not only was it the first area that showed actual signs of life in the world of lord jam but its design was a sight to behold even anor londo in its current state still holds that beauty it's just a different kind of beauty not how various pieces of architecture can create a god-like city that people can only dream of but how despite its destruction and loss of life anorlando still manages to be a beacon of light and upholds the massive significance that it displayed in dark souls 1. after the defeat of aldrich if we retrace our steps back to irithyll we can find a separate path that leads to the profaned capital ruled by yorn the giant interestingly though we don't just arrive in the capital as upon exiting through this hole in the wall we arrive in the irithyll dungeon this place is a massive and convoluted prison filled with all manner of beings who've been imprisoned and tortured and abused by all the jailers these jailers are said to hail from the profane capital but later served under the rule of pontiff's sullivan they're also very ruthless in their methods when it comes to subduing skbs as they have a poisonous mist that saps your health away and use a scoldering piece of hot iron that not only burns at the touch but will hinder your ability to run away as you temporarily fat roll when afflicted if you manage to escape the prison you'll be greeted by the underground city of the profaned capital from a pure spectacle or design perspective i think shulva had a much better greeting upon its entry but the profane capital is still nice to look at it is admittedly quite small this could once again be due to the geological shift of the lands towards lothric but that doesn't ignore the fact that the devs could have done a bit more with its design you'll likely spend more time in the adjacent dungeon than in the actual capital while the area does lack in length it does try to circumvent the issue a bit by adding a bit more depth the capital is covered in various trinkets goblets and burned corpses and these bodies don't just stop at the entrance they are in every section of the capital it's trying to get the player to wonder what exactly happened here well the capital was under attack by a new flame called the profaned flame this was a curse created by a group of women and while they did become disfigured and turn into these creatures we see just outside the capital they did manage to win in the end as it pretty much killed every single person who resided in said capital but this is where gorm came in as he attempted to stop this profane flame before it caused any damage by linking the flame and becoming a lord of cinder but it didn't work as the aforementioned destruction followed shortly after the main question surrounding it though is why do these women create such a thing and how well it's possible that it may have ties to the abyss as both carla the witch and the profaned cole who are both found in the irithyll dungeon have ties to the abyss you're here to save me but i'm guilty a wretched child of the abyss no words where did you happen upon this cold this is much too dark i see the abyss in it furthermore we need to look at the pontiff and elianora pontiff carries a sword called the profaned greatsword which states that sullivan discovered an unfading flame below the tundra of irithyll in the axe elianora can be dropped from these monstrous creatures which says that the women who triggered the curse were relatives of a certain oracle these words tundra irithyll of land covered in snow and oracle all point to elaine leuce and alsana being this oracle from what we just talked about regarding the smoldering lake and what we know from the old chaos and elaine loyce it's clear that the flame of chaos is dying so maybe this is an altered version of the flame of chaos or at least maybe the last few sparks of it it's definitely a stretch but the profane flame has always been interesting to me as the last time a new flame was mentioned in the series well we kinda know how that went upon his revival though yorm saw the state of his city and was in utter shock at what had occurred so now he sits in despair unwilling to link the flame but despite how depressing it would be to kill him we not only need his ashes but a friend also needs to uphold his promise old friend i secret of the knights of katarina have come to uphold my promise let the sun shine upon this lord of cinder when yarn became the ruler of his kingdom many of the people disapproved of him in an effort to gain their trust he created two weapons called the storm rulers and gave one to his people should he ever step out of line and the other to his best friend siegward who promised to kill him should he come back to life this is also the final step in secret's questline and was the main reason i enjoyed it so much as being able to fight alongside an npc such as him against a giant sounds like a blast but despite the wonderful presentation and design of yorm's character it's easily the most underwhelming fight in the game using the storm ruler is the only way to do real damage to your the main attack of the storm ruler is the weapon art that produces a slash of wind capable of downing him but that's just it it's just the same move over and over again doing this alone is easy and with sigrid it becomes even easier as you can almost unlock your arm for a large portion of the battle and for this to occur during a fight with a lord of cinder is pretty pathetic on top of this yarm's second phase doesn't really change anything it just adds a bit of fire to his weapon i feel like there was much more potential for yorm but it was never given to us thankfully this wouldn't be the last time this idea would exist in a souls game as elden ring repurposed this idea and it was much better handled there our final lord of cinder is prince lothric the one who started this problem in the first place but the real question is why it's the one thing that's been rattling in my head since the very beginning why did lothric refuse to link the flame well the answer is honestly a bit sad prince lothric was born to die the rulers of lothric were king osiris and his queen osiris had three children named lorian lothrick and ocelot lorian was the first and was a formidable soldier on the battlefield who was able to single-handedly defeat the demon prince who was said to rule over all the demons osiris figured that his lineage could push their power even further by creating a child specifically to become a lord of cinder and lothric was to be that child but he failed lothric wasn't strong enough so the family committed a deed so heinous that it cursed him for life despite the curse though it worked and lothrick was capable of relinking the flame but his frail body combined with his poor health left him bedridden and resentful being the helpful brother that he was lorian wanted to combine his soul with lothrics but because of lothric's curse it consumed lorian as well which left him mute and a due to this the current state of the world and the fact that even his teacher was having doubts about relinking the flame it ultimately caused lothric to refuse and honestly it's hard to blame him being created for the sake of power and not knowing what your sacrifice will truly do is a hard burden to put on a child especially when you consider how much grooming was presumably done to get lother ready to link the flame had he been brought up in a different light this story could have been changed but due to the greed of the king it ultimately started a chain of events that would bring about the end of the world at the very least though the twin princes weren't the only ones that suffered osiris is more dragon than human now and has gone insane because of it similar to how big hat logan became deranged from the knowledge he read on seath so too did osiris and depending on what you believe he may also be hallucinating during the fight he talks about his son ocelot and we can infer that he's carrying him in his hand but nothing is there this however may not be as obvious as it seems there's currently two theories i believe in that argue for and against ocelot's existence on one hand ocelot may be a hallucination from the king either because ocelot died and he can't accept the loss or that he had been hallucinating the mere idea that he had a child in the first place however on the other hand ocelot may actually exist but was removed due to some real-world complications during the second phase of the boss fight osiris will scream ocelot's name then slam the hand that carries him into the ground presumably killing him we can hear a baby crying in the background during the fight implying that he lived but i think this was a loophole by from software to get rid of complaints killing kids in games if i'm not mistaken will get a game banned just about everywhere and from software has honored this rule and rarely ever adds kids their games to begin with the only ones that come to mind are kuro and sekiro and father gascoin's daughter in bloodborne but his daughter is never seen as we're forced to talk to her through a wall and while crow does make an appearance numerous times he is never shown to be harmed there are three parts in the game that kuro is actually cut with something and each time it happens we never actually see the real act it is of course implied that he has suffered a wound but it's never actually shown from software most likely wanted to add ocelot and his death to the game but couldn't do to the possibility of the game being banned personally i've always been a fan of the four party and do believe that the king is not hallucinating and ocelot was meant to be in the game because this also connects to the king's current mindset as he is going so insane that he doesn't even realize the harm he's putting his child in but to make matters worse while the king was consumed by seath's writings on immortality and the twins were currently suffering through no fault of their own the queen had just decided to leave she disappeared quietly into the knights from the kingdom and was never seen again the queen's identity though is unknown but it is heavily theorized to be gwynevere from dark souls 1 we know that gwenevere bestowed divine blessings to her people and was seen as a symbol of bounty and fertility because of it and the divine blessing of dark souls 3 says that the queen of lothric was initially revered as a goddess of fertility and bounty but the issue is that we know that she left anor londo and became the wife of a flame god flan so how did she go from him to osiris and why did she leave him and come back here furthermore if gwendolyn was actually trying to get the gods back in anor londo how did the two never find one another and why didn't gwenevere come back this could have been due to the presence of aldrich and the pontiff within the cathedral but this also calls into question rosaria as her soul can create the bountiful sunlight miracle which is one of the miracles of gwenevere and given the presentation of both characters from the room's layout to their positions on the bed it's clear that there is a connection between the two brother rosaria is actually guinevere or simply someone guinevere new is never explicitly told to us and really in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter but it is a very interesting theory nonetheless it's clear though to no one's surprise that the royal family is in disarray and is currently suffering just like the kingdom is despite this though the knights of the kingdom still stay strong and continue to defend the castle against the corruption that is the pus of man but it's starting to fight back as the pus of man is embedded within these twin wyverns and many of the castle soldiers and it seems like the pilgrims of londor have also started advancing on the castle as they've managed to control the armor of the dragon slayer and use it as a tool of their destruction after battling through all of this chaos though we can finally meet the prince himself the twin princes actually go against the status quo of the game not just in their decision to refuse the throne but also in how they're presented to the player lothric in a way is this game's gwynne or vendrick who's clearly not on the same level as the other two but it was lothric's choices that set the game's plot into motion just like how gwyn and vendrick's choices set their games blocked into motion instead of being presented as a shambling corpse lothric is the opposite even if he's just some bedridden child that's cursed with a lifelong illness the boss fight isn't this sad encounter that makes you feel like you're doing them a service by putting them out of their misery you're fighting a being who is extremely powerful and is fully conscious of their actions as opposed to the hollow versions of the other two it was a wonderful twist as i expected to be greeted by a somber tune all while seeing the death and decay that has continued to spread throughout the kingdom reach the prince's chambers but i didn't and that surprised me and now is probably a good time to correct a previous statement of mine a couple months ago i made a review on dark souls 3. it was a bit more gameplay-centric than this video is but in that video i said despite loving the twin princes lorian had always pissed me off due to his awful teleportation ability and i want to rectify that statement as i never felt these feelings this time around in the previous video on dark souls 2 i talked about how the quality of these bosses will always be a subjective opinion as the boss's enjoyment largely depends on the build and the skill of the player i naively at the time did not take this into consideration and never considered that i was the problem looking at the gameplay now is downright embarrassing and i realized that lorian was never the issue it was me yes his teleport move does occasionally break line of sight which is still annoying but everything was not as bad as i had made it out to be i always liked the twin princes as a boss fighter that opinion has never changed but i think i can now officially say that it's not only the best lord of cinder fight in the game but it's easily one of the few fights in dark souls 3 that i consider completely perfect the sheer presence of these two is amazing the fight is pretty much lorien versus the player lothric is able to protect lorien with magic and heal him once he dies the same way the player can heal with estes and use their equipment to aid them lothric is like the support role in this duo but he's also the main character that needs to be defeated as he can obviously revive lorian but his magic forces the player to not engage them prolonging the fight even longer than it already is giving lori enough time to finish us off and the fact that the duo manages to be a threat no matter the distance always adds to the intensity of the fight i've always been one to admit when i'm wrong and except the fact that my opinions are never meant to be set in stone and can always be changed and this playthrough thoroughly changed my mind about this fight as the twin princes are not only worthy of the title lord of cinder but were such an excellent boss to put at the end of the journey out of all the souls games i ended up talking about these bosses the most out of any in the trilogy and this is due in parts of the lord of cinders being the only objective in the game so talking about them is really all we can discuss they are the main focus of the game and thus need to have detail lore to back it up this was forgivable in the other games as while those beings did have some importance in the world they weren't the main focus but in dark souls 3 they are if it wasn't for the lords of cinder we wouldn't have a game so they ended up becoming the main focus of the story and the devs managed to deliver aldrich is a testament to that statement as i may have spent more time on them than any character in the series with the exception of the witch of izalith who coincidentally also had numerous bosses and characters tied to her plot i was really impressed by the overall presentation of this game especially when it came to our four lords of cinder even including yorm who had a wonderful design and presentation despite the fight being a bit black luster their lore was rich with details and the item descriptions were long enough to create an essay's worth of information but also left enough info out to keep that soul spirit of finding the context clues and filling in the gaps plus the encounters with said bosses made the time spent getting to them worth it even yorm as once again despite being disappointing there was at least an attempt to create the spectacle of tackling a monolithic sized giant but if there was one thing that bothered me about this game it was the lack of attention given to dark souls 2. narratively this actually fits quite well as drangleic was supposed to be seen as this unimportant kingdom that would be easily toppled and replaced with something else in time only to be forgotten by the rest of the world but if the point was to make the kingdom feel unimportant why are there constant references to it like creighton appearing in cirrus's quest lucatiel's armor and asyluteal sword resurfacing in the game the dead giant at firelink shrine and not only a portrait of nashandra but of a lamb loyce and broom tower found in irithyll it just feels confusing it's like the team actively wants the player to know that despite not making dark souls 2 they are aware and care about the game but barely put in the effort to justify it what is truly the most upsetting part about this is that both vendrick and aldia to my knowledge are never mentioned once throughout the game there is one magic spell found in the grand archives that says the words the first of the scholars which many people have pointed towards a link to aldia but he was a scholar of the first sin not a first scholar plus the first of the scholars could refer to the scholars of the grand archives not aldia it's a shame because they were the only beings that we know of who sought to break the curse through unconventional means and there's zero remnants of their work the two are never brought up in the game and the actual structures of draeng lake or aldia's keep are never seen in game i understand that dark souls 2 was not everybody's cup of tea and maybe the original team wanted to do away with the beat team's creation but you can't deny that vendrick and aldia had the potential to create a sizeable impact on the story and for their legacy to be tarnished like this is a bit disappointing with all the lords of cinder dead and their ashes within our inventory we can now link the first flame but before we do that there is two dlcs and a couple other bits of content from the main areas that i want to address first if we rewind and go back to osiris and visit the area behind his boss arena we'll uncover a place called the untended graves this place is identical to the cemetery of ash in the beginning of the game with the only difference being the lighting it's one of the most talked about locations within the community as this confusion coupled with this feeling of nervousness settles in as upon entry you start to recognize all the familiar landscapes and are just bewildered that a place like this even exists the boss is also identical as its champion gundyr as opposed to utics according to his boss sold description champion gundyr came to firelink shrine to relink the fire but failed and arrived too late he was then eventually bested by an unknown warrior and given the series have a use of that term we can assume that this warrior was us afterwards he then became a chief of the coiled sword so similar to oolacile and the memory of the giants we can go back in the past kill champion gundyr who then becomes a sheath for the coiled sword and hopes another warrior will come and use it to link the flame who just happens to be us we then take the sword from his present body as udyk's gundyr and use it at the bonfire if we happen to defeat champion gundyr though we'll be greeted with an identical firelink shrine and while the fire keeper is not here there are an eyes of a fire keeper located inside the building if we have the eyes in our inventory ludleth and the fire keeper will comment on them loveth refers to the fire keeper as her implying that he knows the identity of this person and the fire keeper will mention how these eyes reveal frightening images of betrayal in a world without fire so we can assume that this was in the past and since ludwig is familiar with the fire keeper and is a lord of cinder it's possible that this was during the time he linked the fire which would also connect with the intro of the game that says that the land of lords are converging together this line just happens to be ludleths but what doesn't make sense is the handmaid's dialogue as in the dark firelink shrine her attitude seems to imply that the flame is still lit as she tells us to hurry along but how is this possible well sadly i don't have an answer for that the untended graves is one of the hardest parts of this game to wrap your head around which makes discussing it extremely difficult one explanation though could be that the fire keeper's eyes are what's causing this darkness as the world in present-day dark souls 3 is getting close to the age of dark as evidenced by the giant dark sign eclipse in the sky but there's still plenty of light left in this world whereas in the untended graves there's nothing but if all the lights extinguish and that implies that this is an age of dark but loveth linked the flame and continued the age of fire so that's why i think it's the eyes of a firekeeper displaying a vision in the sense of what the world would come to should we enact this grand betrayal which is letting the flame die out another thing of note though is the repair spell in dark souls 3 which says that light is time and the reversal of its effect is a forbidden art so this implies that the untended graves could be like the things betwixt it sort of stuck in limbo because there's no light existing and therefore time not existing regardless despite its very confusing backstory it's probably my favorite location to discuss in the game as there's so many possibilities as what this place truly means the final location is near irithyll dungeon as we can use the dragon pose from the untended graves to be transported into arc dragon peak we already know that immortality via dragon form is not unheard of as many people worship the stone dragon in dark souls 1 osiris is assumed to be human before he became a dragon and we can actually find some dragon stones which will turn us into a humanoid dragon similar to the one sitting next to us so it's pretty safe to assume that this place was used to worship the ancient dragons despite the fact that they're all dead now but even though they're all dead that doesn't mean the other flying types won't exist as we get to challenge a wyvern shortly after arriving which at first glance is a pretty cool fight until you realize that the enemies on the walkways are actually tougher than the boss itself i can recognize that the team was most likely experimenting with some bold ideas for boss fights and while it's definitely cool at first it just feels a bit unnatural if you will as completely destroying its health bar in one plunge attack just felt off arc dragon peak not only has a questionable first boss but also raises various questions that admittedly may leave people confused two characters have arrived at this location at certain points in time which are habel and ornstein we find havel next to a downed dragon and we find ornstein's armor towards the end of the level i can forgive havel for being here since he's always had a hatred for dragons and seats in stark souls 1 but that doesn't explain how he's alive well havel had a band of knights who followed him and more than likely wore the same armor as he did so i don't think this is havel more just a knight of havel but while this is explained fairly easily ornstein is not ornstein has always had a complicated history within the series as he was clearly present in dark souls 1 but then shows up again in dark souls 2 as the old dragon slayer and then again in this game as the dragon slayer armor and in arc dragon peak where we are now firstly i've always been a firm believer in the fact that we kill ornstein in dark souls 1. the old dragon slayer is simply someone who is trying to uphold ornstein's legacy or is somehow connected to ornstein's soul since we know from dark souls 2 that the old lord souls can inhibit other's bodies so it's possible orenstein's soul inhibited someone wearing his armor it's also possible that the soul felt comfortable with this decision given orenstein's armor is pretty synonymous with his legacy as for dark souls 3 we know that the dragon slayer armor is not ornstein it is simply just another dragon slayer as the weapon and armor are completely different but arc dragon peak is unique this is not only the same armor that orenstein wore but its item description talks about how he left the anor londo cathedral to come here but when did this happen he couldn't have came here and then went back to the cathedral as his armor is located here and he couldn't have left after dark souls 1 because he died so the only real explanation that makes any plausible sense is that ornstein dies in dark souls 1. he then has his soul return like the previous lord's soul wears but decides to inhabit someone wearing his armor or maybe even the armor itself as it's familiar to the soul we talked about in dark souls 2 how it seemed like the four great ones were connected to specific lord souls because of their feelings and emotions we still don't know whether or not these lord souls connected with them because of these similar emotions or if they gain these feelings from consuming the souls but if this is true then it would make sense that ornstein is continuing to fight the same and has the same goals and ambitions across all the games regardless of how orenstein is alive or how we even ended up here in the first place we at least know why he was here and that was because of the nameless king the nemesis king has actually been t since dark souls 1 as he was the infamous first born son of gwyn that was referenced in various items in that game from both 1 and 3 we can piece together that the nameless king is the firstborn son of gwyn and was a dragon slayer during the war with the everlasting dragons but at some point he would eventually cast all this away and ally himself with the dragons and if you want to talk about presentation when it comes to boss fights this one needs to be mentioned not only does the introduction of the boss feel intense as the nameless king swoops in on a storm drake but when we finish the drake off he literally kills it and takes the power for himself from just a pure gameplay perspective he's easily the second best fight in the game there's a feeling that occurs across the entire series when everything comes together you've learned the moveset understood the timings and discovered the punishes all that's required is to put it together and when that clicks it becomes one of the best fights in the game his moves are punishing have delays and are even mixed together as one combo might have two swings but the next will be three or will do away with the third swing and at a completely different move the fight requires complete concentration and the ability to be patient dodging too early will more often than not lead to your deaths you have to be on high alert for the whole fight genuinely a great fight from top to bottom with it only being surpassed by one being we have yet to cover but before we move on to the dlc i want to look back at the game so far dark souls 3 set out to create a dying world that features places that have been ridden with disease and death showing to the player that their inability to let go of what they know and continue this age of fire will only make things worse even a basic understanding of the war will convey this as you can see just how bad everything has gotten from the fact that there's hundreds of dead bodies that are throughout each level and people are becoming corrupted and infected with these diseases and plagues causing them to either go hollow or turn into a massive black sludge the demon race a group of beings thought to be on top are dying out the gods have all been wiped out and the lords of cinder beings who have the ability to rule over anything they please due to their power refuse to continue this age of fire aldrich wants to continue his own age so admittedly that is a bit more selfish but the other three have recognized that their sacrifice did or will amount to nothing linking the flame never stopped the abyss and never stopped the profane flame and it's never going to end the suffering that's occurred since lordran so the first flame is supposed to be this symbol of peace and comfort then what is actually so good about it all this has been illustrated to us throughout the story and is a testament to how genius the writing of dark souls 3 truly is but now it's time to move on not just to a new ages that will come later but to a new world a painted world even this old man in front of us is gail and he's how we start the dlc ashes of ariandel we talked about this place briefly when we discussed pontiff's sullivan and said it was a painted world for those without purpose upon entering we're greeted by a deformed being who welcomes us and tells us to get comfortable on a bed of rot similar to the real world the painted worlds have their own cycle and it's this cycle that is so interesting as in the main game the age of fire is being constantly prolonged and it's the age of dark that will take it over but as we'll soon see it's the rot that's being prolonged and the only way to get rid of it is to burn it the painted world of ariandel is just a similar version of the dark souls universe with the same themes and ideas just twisted around they're both separate worlds with separate cycles and each one has a particular cycle that is going on too long and it's either the fire that's causing it or the fire that will get rid of it this is also the reason gail sends us to the painted world in the first place as opposed to the corvian we meet first who tells us to embrace the rot gale and even this corvian settler want us to set it aflame setting the painting of flame will allow a new painted world to be created but they can't do that without fire and the person preventing this is sister freed she is the reason the rot is being prolonged and she's also the other ash that the gale and the corvian refer to meaning she's unkindled it's because of her decision to keep the rock going that has caused much of the destruction of this place interestingly though only the korvians seem to care as we talked about the painted world is for those without purpose and the corvians aren't the only ones who reside here as these soldiers are the members of the undead legion of feren in the beginning of the video when we talked about the abyss watchers i mentioned that when they linked the flame the rest of the legion left once that occurred the others no longer had a purpose and further lost any chance of having one once they came to the realization that their home had turned into a swamp according to their armor these fair and followers seem to be specifically tasked with killing any undead legion who succumbed to the abyss which makes me wonder how the abyss watchers cutscene would have played out had the assassins not left maybe the abyss watchers would have finally been able to regain their strength again now that they didn't have to kill each other the other group of people are the millwood knights they don't have too much lore and anything to really tie any of the characters or events to them but at some point in time they lost their forest that they called home and then sought refuge in the painted world these groups seem to just carry on throughout their day and simply exist within the painted world but the corvians are different as you have the regular looking settlers who want to burn the rod away but then there's also the corvian knights who were so infatuated with sister free that they have now turned against their brethren just the basic idea of what the painted world represents to the people within it is such an intriguing concept but the way this loosely connects to the main game's themes is genius one thing i always found disappointing though about ashes of arianda was the length once we enter the painting we're to meet with sister fried who welcomes us but just as quickly dismisses our arrival and tells us to leave because we no longer belong here i have no issue with this as it's not holding the player's hand but everything just feels like it's going so fast as right after this we're to find the painter enter the basement of sister freeze church activate a lever and then we're already at the final boss everything just feels so fast and i was surprised how quickly the final boss was introduced to me i've talked about before how most of the souls games dlcs are like this and don't take much time overall this of course though largely depends on how fast you beat the bosses as they're usually the main hurdles but ashes of ariendo felt shorter than normal there is an optional boss that could take up more of your time but this was just so that the player could access the pvp matches and the lore of the boss also connects to this as this was the champion of the undead matches that the undead used to partake in other than that it's pretty much just going from one area to the next and the distance between them is quite short once we do finish talking with sister freda though our path will eventually lead us to the corvian settlements and its church where we will meet with sir wilhelm he was the guard that was outside the church where sister freed was located but what's more interesting though about sir wilhelm is that he not only has a black flame buff on his weapon but he also wields the darkhand both of which have ties to the abyss this relates back to sister frida as she was one of the three sisters of the sable church her other sisters were liliane and yuria which means she has ties to londor and this is reinforced by the different dialogue options that we get from her if we have the dark sigils and our inventory from yuri's questline it's not much but she does recognize us as the lord of hollows given that she is unkindled it's possible that she tried to link the flame or usurp it and this possibly got her exile from the church without a purpose or home she may have been drawn to the painted world which is how she ended up here in the first place and figured that she could rule over this land by herself however given that we have this innate ability to ruin people's plans we're going to prevent sister freed from doing so to do this we need to talk to the painter and unlock the doors leading to her room for her to be able to paint though she will need to see flame and to do this we need to get to the source again this is father ariendo the painter of the painted world of ariandel who is now being held captive by sister freda she managed to convince father ariendel that the only way to preserve the painted world was to bury the flame and let the rock consume the world to stop him from spreading he uses his flail on himself causing him to bleed which appeases the flame it's quite a sad story and it makes sister frida out to be even worse of a person than she already was given that we're going against her wishes though she fights us and she is very difficult which is also very entertaining i love this fight and i think it's a great way to end the dlc the fight starts out quite normal until her blood reaches father ariandel who freaks out causing the room to be engulfed in flames and him to break out of his restraints and attack us fruit is also back and it turns into a 2v1 it's very reminiscent of ornstein and smoe as the duo complements each other quite well this is also the only fight in the trilogy to my knowledge where you can summon an npc in the middle of the fight as gail can only be summoned for the second phase it also makes sense to bring him along since both you and him have the same objective so there's no reason for him not to help you after sister frida has been dealt with though we can return to these [Music] yeah so if it wasn't already bad enough sister frida has a third phase this whole encounter is extremely stressful as you not only have to plan for one but two extra phases there's been so many times where i got pummeled during this fight in the first phase that i just reset as i knew it wasn't worth starting the next phase with half the estus she really forces the player to learn her moveset thankfully though gail does make the encounter easier but is still very difficult even with his assistance with sister freed and father ariendel dead for real this time the fire will now be able to consume the painting without any delays which means the painter can now work on the new world she plans to create a cold dark and very gentle place as she calls it she's going to need paint to make that painting and from what we learned from father eryandel's soul we know that the paintings are written in blood so gail's objective will be to scour the land for some blood to use his pigment and while he does that we can go on to the next dlc but gail's here too he has written messages for us and points us towards where we're supposed to go so what blood is he getting well gail is trying to find the blood of the dark soul the dark soul which leads him to the ring city ashes of ariendo was a short but decent dlc the bosses were great and the actual design of ariendo was beautiful from its frozen tundras to its rotted swamps but if it felt complete or if the dlc suddenly ended so soon that's the point as both of dark souls 3's dlcs are a connected story the story of gale and the painter and their quest to create a new world which leads us to the ring city the start of the ring city dlc sees us travel to the drag heap the area we talked about earlier in the video as i said then time is getting worse as the world progresses and this is a perfect example as now that the age of fire is getting even closer to the end lands are converging on each other more and more and the world is practically collapsing in on itself here in the drag keep we can see nostalgic callbacks to the past like the earthen peak windmill and the desert pyromancer from dark souls 2. this is a very long and convoluted level to really showcase how bad everything has gotten but at the very end of the level is the demon duo not only is the gameplay of this fight fantastic as it not only surpasses the previous duo but might even be on par as orenstein and smo but the location of the fight is heavily theorized to be the original firelink shrine of dark souls 1. the reason being is that the exit of this arena is the same structure that frampt appears in gail can once again join you for this fight but it will trivialize this encounter tremendously as the demons have long cooldowns between their attacks and also alternate move sets i actually found this fight to be balanced while being outnumbered so adding more people makes it worse once the demons are both dead the last one to die gets to be reborn as the demon prince just like the first flame the chaos flame needed to be rekindled by a demon with vast power and the current demon prince at the time was going to but ended up facing lorian and was defeated however all demons share memories with another so in theory that means they can share the power of the demon prince and when the last demon falls it is reborn as the demon prince and the last of its kind the demon prince is a genuinely great fight and for being the first boss in the dlc this is already a great start to the additional content when the demon prince does fall though we can finally say goodbye to the demons the once great race thought to be almost on top has now withered away never to be remembered again just like everything else in this world with the drag keep finished we can move on to the final location of the dlc but one thing that's been very interesting about the drag key was the progression of time as we go further down in the game we're actually going further back in the past as we start out at the very top in dark souls 3 we move further down to dark souls 2 with the earthen peak making an appearance and then we're all the way at the bottom where we're back in dark souls 1 with the firelink shrine but we can go even further back as past the old firelink shrine we can travel to the ring city a place that has existed since the gods toppled the dragons the ring city is gorgeous and is one of the most beautiful locations in the dark souls trilogy this place is home to the pygmy lords and they have a wonderful welcoming committee oddly enough though these shadow archers actually look like the ruined sentinels from dark souls 2. according to their armor set they were a band of knights who were sent to the ring city so it's possible that vendrick may have sent them here as a way to find out more about the undead curse but were defeated and now are used by the city to defend its people during city is the home of the pygmies the ancestors of mankind we don't hear much regarding the actual furtive pygmy but the ring city is ruled by the pygmy lords the early descendants of the original pygmy according to various item descriptions though gwyn gave them this city as a reward for their help against the dragons but since this is located at the literal edge of the world it's possible gwen wanted the pygmies out of sight and away from his kingdom since they had the dark soul which of course he does not like as for how the pygmies helped during the war what we can find out soon after as these ringed knights were some of the soldiers who fought during the war with the everlasting dragons the weapons they carry were forged from the abyss since that was the birthplace of humanity which would explain the blatant dark sign on their chest as it seems that they too were cursed like we were by gwyn if we progress further into the level we'll end up in this abyssal swamp and end up fighting the dragon slayer armor again and if we read its description we'll discover that when we defeated it in lothric it somehow made its way down here and then became possessed again by the feeling of battle look i love orenstein as much as the next guy but we do not have to keep bringing him back we can just let his legacy die i understand in this case it is just a piece of armor and not actually ornstein but you have to admit that this boss's design is purposely similar to orenstein's i found this encounter more annoying rather than interesting as there was zero reason to bring back the dragon's lair armor again in the swamp we can also find a white face locus similar to the one earlier in the level these locusts are beings from the abyss and they were supposed to preach sermons to men so that they could draw them towards the dark but they couldn't see past their stomachs and cared more about what they were eating which is why they act like gluttonous monsters this description means that this is what they always looked like and didn't turn into these creatures at some point but it may also imply that they were born alongside humanity within the abyss each of them ends up talking about specific people and are possibly referencing certain npcs and so she lived in fear of the dark of the things that gnawed at her flesh the little creatures that nibble at me in the darkness and so despite his weighty armor he lived in fear of a delicate thing little more than a girl where fire resideth shadows twist and shrivel but in the abyss there are shadows none fear not the dark my friend and let the feast begin i've always found this interaction odd as it's unclear how this creature even knows anything about these npcs this has caused a bit of debate amongst many people in the community as some claim that it's showing how destructive humanity is but on the other hand like with the case of iriana's dialogue the locus preacher could be implying that the abyss is not as bad as it seems as that preconceived idea earing ahead of the abyss caused her to feel these insect-like creatures in her head i don't really think that there is a correct answer here as it sort of ties into the world of dark souls and how the player views the abyss humanity and the age of dark and whether or not it's something that they should be embracing similar to how we have to make a choice at the end of the games before we leave though we can view this purging monument which is only accessible to humans as to even get to this area we need to transform into a humanity sprite using a white tree branch this monument may be the source of all the purging stones protein stones have existed since dark souls 1 and were used to remove the curse effect in that game but it's not about taking the curse and removing it it's just transferring it to the stone itself to be the new host but the stone is said to once be a person so maybe these are the beings who were turned into stone or what they became once we transfer the curse to the stone or maybe it's something else entirely after getting out of the swamp we'll find a dragon named madir this isn't fake like the ancient dragon madeir is an actual descendant of the arc dragons from long ago even though he only seems to make an appearance here if we knock him off the bridge and find a secret tunnel we can find him again he is easily the most difficult boss in the entire game with a staggering 15 000 health and he's also equipped with some moves that might one shot the player depending on their equipment according to his boss soul madeir was actually raised by the gods and was tasked with fighting the abyss and it seems that he's been alive for a long time as one description says from not long after the beginning meaning he may have existed before even fire was born back when the dragons ruled the world the reason he's going so crazy is very similar to artorias as the abyss has fully corrupted him so we need to put him out of his misery he is definitely the ultimate challenge for players given his kit of high damaging moves but assuming you can conquer him you'll receive the spears of the church which ties into our next boss half-light half-light is a member of the covenant spears of the church who guards philianore who is said to be gwyn's daughter who he left here in the ring city but half light is a pvp boss as there's a chance a real player can replace half-light and be the boss instead but that is only accessible to those who defeat madir since he drops the pendant that allows you to access the covenant sadly though since this game is over six years old you will more than likely just get half light instead interestingly though half light may have been from oolacile as the bow he uses says that it was a relic from an ancient land of sorceries that has been swallowed by the abyss and we know that oolacile has many unique spells like repair hidden body and chameleon his outfit also states that a group of young missionaries went to the ring city long ago but half-light stayed behind making him the final spear of the church this would also mean that there was a time in ulysses history and when it wasn't corrupted by the abyss and was a normal land before koth came and tricked them behind the church is filianor the girl they swore to protect and she may have one of the best cutscenes this series has to offer upon touching her egg she wakes up which sees the world change out of everything in the dark souls series this might be at the top as the most talked about interaction in the game as there's so much that happens with very little explanation as to what it means many people believe that filianore and her egg held up the illusion of the ring city similar to gwyndolin and anor londo and dark souls 1 but some have also claimed that this takes us to the future and is a glimpse of what the world will look like should we keep things going her egg though is interesting as it has a very dark center and if we relate this back to the repair spell from earlier that's as light as time by breaking the egg we break the dark inside of it which allows light to appear meaning now time exists and is no longer stagnant which would go along with the theory that this is a future as the time accelerates after being stagnant for so long regardless of what you believe in though this cutscene is great and allows us to access the wasteland of ash inside this wasteland is two beings and if you subscribe to the theory that this is the future this might be the last two beings left in the world us and gail what still here handed over that thing your dark soul gail has not only gone mad and grown in size but he is the final boss of the dlc the ring city was the final dlc and also the final piece of content in the dark souls trilogy having played this game on release i had already beaten the final boss tons of time so for me gail was technically my final boss of dark souls and i couldn't have asked for anything better to me gale is the best boss in the game and even the entire trilogy everything from design to presentation to gameplay is completely perfect gael is a slave knight who are knights that were used as fodder in many of the land's bleakest wars but it seems most of them went hollow all except for gale gill came to the ring city in search of the dark souls and thus slaughtered the pygmy lords as they contain the dark souls within them since they're the descendants of the furtive pygmy but gail realized that the dark souls had dried up so in order to make them liquid enough to be used as pigment he consumed the dark souls that they carried since it was now in his bloodstream it was able to mix into a liquid again but doing so made him go mad gail literally has the power of the dark soul within his body and uses the power of the dark soul and the abyss to fight us as evident by these red skulls that appear from his cape he and gwyn also contrast each other in this respect gwyn was a being who was a god from the beginning and on top of the food chain and is remembered by all for his sacrifice but gail was a slave the lowest of the low whose sacrifice will be known by only us a lowly piece of unkindled ash this sacrifice of gales ties into a theory of mine after his death we can take the blood of the dark soul to the painter to be used as pigment for her new world gail knew he wouldn't make it back but continued his mission anyway by handing it off to us he helps us defeat sister freda and the demon prince which are the two required bosses we need to beat to get to the ring city and once we do get to the ring city he leaves markings of his cape along the way that it will eventually point us towards his location he wanted us to find him and he wanted us to defeat him so that we can continue his mission for him and give the painter the blood she needed as a whole gale is easily my favorite character and boss in this game he is like us a nobody he isn't some god-like figure or a being who was born with insurmountable power he like us gained this power through battle and now the two strongest beings in the world are duking it out at the edge of the world truly the best boss this game has to offer and was the best way to end all the dlcs with gail defeated we can now give the painter the pigment she thanks us and will eventually start painting she never actually finishes the painting though and this is an important detail just like the other dlcs in the trilogy this isn't the end of the game the final boss is at the kiln it's not gayle so giving her this pigment doesn't mean the end of the game it's just one part of our long journey even if it seems like a wonderful conclusion to the game the dlcs of dark souls are the best in the series and the ring city is a big reason why ashes of variandel is great and a nice additional side story especially since we get to learn more about the painted worlds but the callbacks references and answers to questions we've been wondering about for years are what makes this dlc so impressive furthermore both dlcs have some of the most intense fights in the game and are the pinnacle of this game's combat from software has always made their dlcs with incredible quality and sometimes are even better than the main game and dark souls 3 continues to honor this tradition gale's objective is now complete so now it's time to complete ours which is go to the kiln and determine the fate of the world once again defending this kiln is being known as the soul of cinder this is the physical manifestation of every being to link the flame since its inception meaning our characters from dark souls 1 and 2 are a part of this being he also fights like a real player too as his moveset is by far the most diverse in the game he has three different melee weapons uses all the schools of magic and even has the ninja flip ring from dark souls 1 but our old characters aren't the only ones in this being there is one other character we know of the one who was here from the very beginning he was the one that created this world so it's ironic that he gets to be here for when we destroy it [Music] [Music] the soul of cinder not only has the same move set as owen but also the same piano and it's the music i'll be honest i get a bit emotional whenever i hear this hearing that piano made me think of the journey i had taken to get here all the defeats and victories all the npcs i had encountered all the kingdoms i uncovered and all the fates of the people i've met along the way we have seen the literal rise and fall of the entire world before our eyes and every single person and decision we have made has shaped us into the person we are now a person who now has to determine the entire fate of the world should you go against everything this game has taught you and still believe in the first flame you'll be shown a very depressing ending the ashen 1 links the flame and continues the age of fire but it's not the spectacle we saw in dark souls 1. it can barely even cover our character let alone the rest of the arena the ashen one looks disappointed as if they expected something more in fact we the player were probably expecting something more and are now just as disappointed this is why i believe that everyone from gwyn till now has linked the flame when it faded as if the world alternated like it was supposed to then this wouldn't make sense as to why the flame is this pitiful the first flame is on its deathbed and we still haven't granted it the death it wants if we instead summon the fire keeper she will take the first flame and extinguish it for good the age of dark will commence and the world has gone completely black and while it may seem scary to venture into a world without fire the fire keeper assures us that the fire will eventually return someday just like it did all those years ago remember things are meant to live and die the age of dark is temporary and fire will return and an age of fire will begin again but hopefully it will not be extended this time if you're feeling greedy you can also enact the age of dark and take the flame's power for yourself this is similar to our final ending and the secret ending of dark souls 3 the usurpation of fire this requires us to complete yuri's questline yuria is from a place called londor and we know that she's also the sister of frida and lillian who created the sable church in londor but what is londor well it's a land of hollows as we can see all the hollows bowing down to us as the new lord of hollows londor also had many pilgrims that came to this land possibly to find the first flame and overtake lothric those butterflies from the dragon slayer armor are called pilgrim butterflies so maybe this is the pilgrim's final form so to speak these pilgrims are most likely members of the sable church as while the sisters created the church the pilgrims most likely went here to worship their god who happens to be the primordial serpent koth we never see koth in game and the only reason we even know this is because of yuri's death dialogue but the call back to him was insane and almost maybe nervous for a bit as he could have been orchestrating this church for who knows how long so that he finally gets what he wants if you remember he tricked the four kings and the people of oolacile into being engulfed by the abyss so what's stopping him from doing it against the people of londor although in his defense when we placed the lord vessel in dark souls 1 koth says that every last one of them failed him so maybe he isn't trying to screw with londor and possibly found a genuine group of people that will follow and carry out his wish accompanying us into the new world is also henri of astora who depending on our actions either got to defeat aldrich with us and finally be able to kill the person she hated the most or gets killed and unwillingly serves as our bride when we become the lord of hollows which is quite a dark twist londor also seems to embrace its hollow state but this may come at a cost joel of londor can give us the dark sigils required to progress the quest line but once he does that he dies and the assassin who gives us the wedding sword dies after the ceremony so it seems like they're only able to retain their sanity when hollow but as a consequence die once their purpose has been fulfilled this is just about all we know in regards to londor but there are still quite a few theories involved with the kingdom such as the fact that londor could be tied to drawing lake or velka admittedly it's a small connection but items from dark souls 1 and 2 like the vow of silence dead again dark drift and dark hand have had their item descriptions changed the vow of silence in dark souls 1 is a spell that was created by velka but in dark souls 3 it's used by members of the church and the dark drift from dark souls 2 was said to be used by the grave warden in the undead crypt but in dark souls 3 it's used by yuria however i don't think vendrick and aldia are related to this though as the two of them wanted to remove the curse and londor wants to embrace their hollow form although in a manner of speaking the hollow form is the true version of man and thus could be in a way what the brothers desired but i'm not too sure i believe in this theory especially given how the brothers are never mentioned in this game and would be weird if they finally made an appearance now regardless now it's time to say goodbye to the age of fire and to dark souls the age of dark is a metaphor for the dark souls series every dark souls game has taken place in the age of fire and by keeping this age going we can keep the dark souls games going but is that really what we want many games have gone on to make numerous sequels and ruin the integrity of that series the age of dark is not just about moving on from the age of fire but from dark souls itself as much as i want more dark souls games to keep coming it's only going to ruin the franchise going forward but that doesn't mean we have to say goodbye to the souls genre we have elden ring and any other souls games that come after it so our hunger for this genre of games will never die but we do need to say goodbye to dark souls having dark souls end now means it ends on a high note and i'd rather see the game quit while it's ahead then watch it release sequel after sequel that will inevitably tarnish its reputation causing it to be one of the many games in the industry that ran itself into the dirt so it's time to finally put this game and its world to rest thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Gingy

Views: 587,415

Keywords: dark souls 2, dark souls 3, dark souls 1 story, dark souls 2 story, dark souls 3 story, dark souls 1 lore, dark souls 2 lore, dark souls 3 lore, dark souls 1 dlc, dark souls 2 dlc, dark souls 3 dlc, dark souls 1, dark souls trilogy, dark souls retrospective, dark souls 1 ending, dark souls 2 ending, dark souls 3 ending, dark souls 1 explained, dark souls 2 explained, dark souls 3 explained, dark souls review, video essay

Id: mQZi0BBi4MA

Length: 173min 35sec (10415 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 14 2022