DLC I Beat: Crown of the Sunken King

Dark Souls II: Crown of the Sunken King
Suicide Simulation
1 Player
 System: PS3
Developer: From Software
Year of Release: 2014
Beaten: July 24th, 2014

I want to preface this a bit. While I'm a huge fan of the Souls series overall Dark Souls II is probably my least favorite entry. Ironically it's my most played by a HUGE margin. I don't want to get wrapped up in talking about the main game itself right now, needless to say I was underwhelmed overall. They streamlined a lot of things, some for the better but in my opinion they went overboard in a lot of key areas. Considering I only beat Demon's and Dark Souls once each while I've managed to claim the Throne of Want at least six times by now. That should show how much I really do love the game despite all of its faults.

As for this DLC it really picks up the slack in some of the areas the main game was lacking. Exploration actually feels like a factor again. In Dark Souls II it really felt like the developers just couldn't recapture that feeling of splendor and discovery the last two games had, to save time just look at the design of Aldia's Keep to get what I'm talking about. Needless to say it really suffered coming off of the original Dark Souls' incredibly compact and well thought out world design. You find yourself in the Sunken City of Shulva. This area actually feels like it wraps around on itself and they had a lot of fun messing with the verticality here. You're constantly either falling down holes or triggering elevators. Early in the area they even manage to have this affect game play to an extent which I really enjoyed. A group of archers can freely massacre you on your approach but if you trigger these pillars to rise they can no longer target you. It's simple, but feels unique. I do kind of wish they made it easier to trigger them by accident making the player have to pay more attention. Maybe I'm jaded coming fresh off of these, and having not thoroughly exploring every hall meticulously, but it really does feel a lot better and Souls-y, if you will.

The atmosphere felt fantastic capturing that decrepit Souls feel. There are a handful of new enemies, all of which I enjoyed. For the most part they're standard fare soldiers with weapons that are fairly aggressive, though they add a new witch enemy who can pose a threat from a distance. The stand out new enemy take on the appearance of those ghosts of other players you see sporadically pop up during online play. You must find their physical bodies in their graves and destroy them before they become corporeal and you can finally finish them. Magic works as well, but I was playing with a dual wielding tank sort of character. It was an interesting dynamic to deal with which shined in one very hectic area with a swarm of these guys and trying to find their tomb to finally defeat them was honestly thrilling.

Standard enemies aside the three boss fights were all pretty well designed, both mechanically and aesthetically. There's an optional boss fight against three hooligans, I couldn't gleam much info about them from a story perspective, but the fight wasn't bad. Each have separate attack patterns and mentalities, dealing with them 1 on 3 is a strategic hassle with an overwhelming feeling of pride afterwards. Even summoning for this fight is fulfilling as each of you break off and handle a part of the fight. It feels like a better realized version of the Three Sentinels fight to me, I know some people will hate on it for being yet another multi-boss but I feel they're overreacting. The next two bosses are fought one after another, with a bonfire in between thankfully. First up is a caster similar to Nashandra but with more of a focus on physical attacks, you can even get her weapon if you trade her soul to Ornifex, though it has a high STR, DEX and FTH requirement. The coolest aspect of the fight though is that she can summon in other enemies to help fight (won't spoil who though). It was a lot of fun dancing back and forth between her and her summons.

Once triumphant and you traverse the fog into the final room you encounter the last boss, who's actually the first creature you encounter in the DLC. I'll be vague about it's attack pattern as that is usually the strongest part of the boss fights but it's a dragon. I'm going to be honest, I don't usually like the dragon fights in the Souls games as they're either overly simplistic, or brutally difficult. They managed to hit a good balance here, he loves jumping about so melee characters will have a bitch of a time getting hits in. But it is oh so satisfying to dodge his attacks and land small hits until finally you land that last blow. To me, that feeling IS the Souls games, and this fight nailed it perfect.

Probably the weakest point of the DLC is the story/set up however. The gateway is located in Black Gulch, which most players probably heard about via online gossip, that's how I found out anyway. As far as I can tell there's no direct in game direction on how to get there. Fitting as Souls games are usually vague. There are two hints as to where to go however. Behind that statue in Majula the once too worn away text suddenly tells you to visit Black Gulch which I thought was neat. But the more interesting bit is that you can actually go back and vist Vendrick in Memory of the King. There is no hint that if you visit his tomb once more with the ashen mist heart that you'll encounter this. He drops some hints as to why you might want to pick up the crowns of the lost kings, and the atmosphere is so dreary and just perfect. It's a shame because this was my favorite moments honestly. Seeing Vendrick before hallowing just sitting there because he finally understands the curse and has just given up. I loved it. Seriously, go visit him before and after beating the DLC if you care at all about the lore of the game. I assume this will hold true for the other packs as well.

I'm can't believe how much I thoroughly enjoyed this DLC. On the one hand I'm so grateful they seem to be back on top of level design, but on the other, what the fuck were they doing while making the main game? Regardless I can wholeheartedly recommend Dark Souls II, and more relevantly, Crown of the Sunken King as well worth anyone's time who has enjoyed the Souls games up to this point. This is another tangent, but when I first heard about DLC I was so excited about the concept. If you keep up with games at all you should know how dismal the scene is now. This is the sort of thing I had in mind, bite sized morsels of the game available for a reasonable price because I loved the main game too damn much to give up on it now. Though after Artorias I didn't have many doubts that this would be just another quick cash in. I cannot wait for the next two chapters of this Crown Trilogy.