video games

A Blast Through Dark Souls Remastered

Context

Playing through FromSoftware's 2022 Elden Ring and its accompanying gigantic expansion Shadow of the Erdtree, changed me and what I appreciate about video games as a medium. To this day, I have a blog post entry in my drafts that I will not submit, because this behemoth deserves more than my words can express. And I cannot think of another piece of art that I could say that about. FromSoftware's winning formula for gameplay forces players to oscillate between the despair inherently found when working against insurmountable odds, and the fever-pitched triumphs of overcoming those same obstacles with sheer grit and determination. And while Elden Ring is a modern classic in its own right, it owes its successes to the prior foundational work established in older FromSoftware titles, especially the Dark Souls trilogy. Though I attempted and got fairly deep into Dark Souls Remastered on my PC a couple years ago (around 25 hours), I got distracted and forgot about the game for awhile. Given my prior engagement with the game, and how beneficial that time would be for taking on boss fights and navigating the map, I made the commitment that I would beat Dark Souls Remastered. This is that story.

Zweihander and the Bells of Awakening

For this playthrough, I picked cleric as my class with a Master Key as my chosen item. After the game's initial tutorial, I begin in Firelink Shrine and I went to a nearby graveyard for a specific weapon: Zweihander (translates to "two-hander" in German). I decided to wield this colossal greatsword as my primary weapon and it requires much of my early game stat allocation to be distributed into Strength to fulfil its requirements. As far as weapon movesets go, pressing R1 delivers a fairly standard sword swing, but R2 is the main appeal. It deals lots of damage to an enemy with a mighty, though slow, poise-breaking bonk on the head. Utilizing this weapon requires a great deal of patience in timing attacks and maintaining momentum if an enemy is staggered. I practiced with this as I proceeded through the opening locations of the game and their accompanying bosses, but it became familiar very quickly.

As far as my objective is concerned in these opening locations and boss fights, I must ring two Bells of Awakening. The first is located on top of Undead Parish and is available after defeating the aptly named Bell Gargoyles. This was easy enough and I made good time through Upper Undead Burg and Undead Parish, with the Bell Gargoyles taking a dozen attempts or so. The second bell, however, is located in an odd subterranean realm. Not only did this require me to defeat Capra Demon and Gaping Dragon, but I also had to navigate Lower Undead Burg, The Depths, and of course, Blighttown. As you proceed deeper through these hostile environments, bleakness intensifies. The anxiety of the Depth's claustrophobic tunnels are heightened by the monstrosities referred to as Basilisks. Their cute-adjacent amphibian features are a distraction from the curse-inducing spew they kill players with. Their curse means that, even after dying, you will only have 50% of your health pool until you stumble upon, or buy, a purging stone. Adding to the pain found in the Depths, Blighttown is effectively a dirty and dangerous cliffside makeshift structure on the edge of a poisonous underground swamp. If I was not dying to poison chipping away at my health or rabid red canines, I was trying to falling to my death. Eventually, once getting to the sludging bottom of Blighttown, I found a bonfire and made my way to take on the arachnid-like Chaos Witch Quelaag. This boss encounter took several attempts, but I found a good rhythm eventually and finished off Chaos Witch Quelaag quicker than the Bell Gargoyles. After, I was able to ring the second Bell of Awakening, where I was then greeted with a cutscene revealing Sen's Fortress opening for the player.

Onward to Anor Londo!

With the two bells rung and Sen's Fortress open, I made my way up through Blighttown's alternative ascent to connect back to Firelink Shrine. I had a short discussion with Kingseeker Frampt (allegedly a primordial serpent) and was put onto the task of obtaining the Lordvessel at Anor Londo. To get there, I had the make my way back through the Undead Parish and to connect with Sen's Fortress. This location is effectively a ridiculous trap house full of sword-wielding snakes, gargantuan rolling balls, and these blades on pendulums. Upon reaching the top of the fortress, I took on the Iron Golem and made quick work of him. After that point, I was carried by a few Batwing Demons to the angelic and palatial Anor Londo!

Once through a cathedral-like building, I opened up a shortcut and was able to make further progress into the main building. Unfortunately, the main door was locked, so I got navigate a gauntlet of Sentinels, Batwing Demons, and Silver Knights. All of which made scaffolding along the side of the building more dangerous given the descent below as I fought. It took me more times to get through this area than I would like to admit, though I do understand this section to be a major friction point for many players. Once in the main building, I had to navigate the palatial structure itself to defeat Silver Knights and find the chamber with the Lordvessel.

Once in the chamber, I was greeted with Anor Londo's primary boss encounter: Dragon Slayer Ornstein and Executioner Smough. Both bosses fight the player simultaneously and have their own health pools, but upon defeating the first boss, the other boss is amplified and returns to their maximum health pool. Given the fact that I had ascended my Zweihander to deal lightening damage and the boss encounter is resistant to the same damage, it took dozens of tries in order t0 beat their combined forces. Despite how many times I had my ass handed to me, I absolutely adored this boss encounter greatly.

Killing Lords and Swinging Colossal Greatswords

After placing the Lordvessel back at Firelink Shrine, I was instructed by Kingseeker Krampt to beat four lords encounters to access the Kiln of the First Flame. Given the familiarity with the Duke's Archive and Crystal Cave from my prior attempted playthrough, I started with taking on Seath the Scaleless. Duke's Archive is a magisterial library with a prison tower incorporated into it. Upon escaping the prison tower itself, I navigated Duke's Archive and was treated to a brief jaunt outside to make my way to the Crystal Cave. As crystalline as a Crystal Cave might be (very pretty), the invisible pathways above the sheer descent are dreadful to walk along. Every time during the Seath the Scaleless boss fight, I had the find my way from the bonfire and retrace my last route. As for the boss fight itself, Seath the Scaleless, as daunting and sick as he might look, he's a fairly easy boss fight once I found out where to stand whilst wailing at him.

Upon defeating him, I was off the go spelunking in the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith. Thematically, these areas are very fire-oriented and the enemies reflect that (reminds me of the Doom franchise). This includes boss battles like the Demon Firesage and Centipede Demon. To get through Lost Izalith, which is basically an ancient ruin surrounded by lava, the player has to defeat the latter of those two bosses to acquire a ring that will substantially reduce lava damage. As for the primary target for this expedition, the Bed of Chaos was a stupidly designed boss. It was both difficult to overcome and easy to cheese. Not only does this boss have this ridicious ranged sweep attack, but the boss fight's arena collapses as the encounter progresses. In order to defeat the Bed of Chaos, you have to destroy two seals, before cutting through the bosses' dense thicket to finish them off. They should have cut this boss from the game.

After Bed of Chaos, I went to Darkroot Garden to fight through the most vegetative locations of the game and find the cutest boss: Great Grey Wolf Sif. This is a gigantic wolf with a sword in its mouth. Just a fun little fight and I needed to do it for the Covenant of Artorias. Getting to the third lord, Gravelord Nito, was a goddam nightmare. From the spinning spiked skeletal wheels to meandering towering pathways in pitch dark, the runback through the Catacombs and Tomb of Giants was horrendous. It took so much for me to find out where the next bonfires were. And once I found the bonfires, I still had to run back to the boss every time and pray I did not fall to my death. The main saving grace was how cool Gravelord Nito looked. It was a very slow-moving boss though, and I could easily tank damage while chipping away at the health pool. Relative to all four of the lord bosses, this was the easiest.

Eventually, after navigating the darkwraith-ridden New Londo Ruins and with the Covenant of Artorias equipped, I was able to plunge into the abyss and take on the Four Kings. With four separate enemies (with a shared health bar) that emerge on a timer, this is essentially a test to determine whether or not I am able to deal enough damage per second to burn through the four separate foes. It took a few attempts, but using Havel's bulky armour set helped tank the magic damage and let me maintain close proximity to the target as the fight progressed. And with the defeat of the Four Kings, I was able to satiate the Lordvessel and open the Kiln of the First Flame.

Defeating Gwyn, Lord of Cinder and a Brief Retrospective

Though I took on Gwyn, Lord of Cinder (the penultimate boss for the game) several times and made major headway (learning how to finally parry for instance), it was not enough. I decided to scout out for more souls and worked towards changing my lightening Zweihander to a fire Zweihander, specifically due to Gwyn, Lord of Cinder's weakness to fire (and surprising resistance to lightening). It still, ultimately, took dozens of attempts to identify the opportune time to parry (the boss' greatsword swing) and carry those parries out successfully. In fact, the only reason I managed to beat the boss when I did was a flow state that I got into – which could only happen because I did not overthink the combat too much. As for the choice at the end of the game, I decided upon Age of Fire ending, because a Dark Lord ending just seemed like a mean thing to do. After blasting through this game over the past couple weeks (with still a lot of content not experienced), I have come to appreciate how special Dark Souls is. For myself, while the combat is rewarding in its brutality, I personally find that the greatest strength of Dark Souls is the world itself. Much of the joy I found in exploring Elden Ring can be found here too and it really shows. FromSoftware knows how to build a sense of atmosphere for player immersion and enliven a world's lore through environmental storytelling. It is why FromSoftware are masters at their craft and are responsible for the emergence of the souls-like genre.