After more than two years of development, a demo for the epic new Dark Souls III mod known as Dark Souls: Archthrones has finally been released, causing many Souls fans on PC to rejoice.

The development team is an all-star cast of Souls devotees who had the skills, passion and time needed to essentially make their own entry in the series. They made many modifications including improved graphics, different combat mechanics and more options for players to make adjustments to the UI — but the most exciting part about the mod is the new content. There are five new areas, eighteen new bosses, fully-voiced new NPCs and lore-rich new items.

Having beaten Dark Souls III for the first time just before the Archthrones demo released on March 15th, I downloaded the mod files that night so that I could start playing immediately. Although I’m still only seven hours in, I’m already impressed by what I’ve seen.

As I went through the familiar routine of creating a character, breezing through the tutorial section and facing off with the first big baddie, I appreciated both the faithfulness to the source material and the creativity of the Archthrones development team as they managed to weave together so many different elements not just from Dark Souls III, but from all of the Souls games.

For example, besides Dark Souls III, Archthrones pays homage to other Souls games from the onset by using the font from Demon’s Souls for the title screen.

From that point I nearly killed the new tutorial boss, Demon Vanguard, but ultimately died because I got a little too cocky due to some assumptions I made based on its obvious similarities to Vanguard, the tutorial boss from Demon’s Souls.

Despite my defeat which caused my character to respawn in a new location, I was soon rewarded with an introduction to the Nexus of Embers — a verdant re-imagining of the long-decayed Firelink Shrine from Dark Souls III, with vines growing wildly over everything and many new and familiar faces like Stockpile Thomas from Demon’s Souls and Blacksmith Andre from the original Dark Souls.

As I interacted with NPCs near the bonfire and in the rooms upstairs, one thing I learned was that the events of Archthrones take place long before the end of the Age of Fire, effectively making it an unofficial prequel to Dark Souls III.

In place of the thrones reserved for the Lords of Cinder, the newly dubbed Archthrones serve as access points to distinct areas and, much like the Archstones in Demon’s Souls, they allow for nonlinear progression. Players may now access any area at any time although some areas are much harder than others.

Following a tip from the Archthrones subreddit, I started off by interacting with the coiled sword behind the Archthrone of the Bountiful Queen (the one nearest to the back) which transported me to the first new area: War-Torn Village.

Between the blood red sky, spooky houses and worker hollows skulking about, I could see how the development team had taken many aspects of the area directly from the Undead Settlement and repurposed them to the point that it felt like a completely new area, especially with added touches like floating autumn leaves and eerie choral music to give it a different tone.

As I continued on toward the next bonfire, I encountered new types of enemies such as the Angelic Paladins from whom I looted my go-to armor set, found new items like the Apostle Scythe (associated with the followers of a new NPC named Saint Gertrude) and gained many souls which allowed me to level up and upgrade my weapon several times in anticipation of the first area boss.

In the picture above, I’m flaunting the new Angelic Paladin armor set which is identical to the Lothric Knight armor set in terms of stats, but more aesthetically pleasing. I couldn’t imagine a better fit for my Joan of Arc-inspired strength/faith build.

It wasn’t long until I found the Angelic Siege Golem — a new boss that reminded me slightly of Tower Knight from Demon’s Souls (similarly huge and clad head-to-toe in armor) but it used powerful new Angelic magic attacks that ranged from wide arcs to small homing projectiles which were much harder to evade than Tower Knight’s.

After several failed attempts, I used an ember in the hopes of recruiting a friendly live player online to help me but I couldn’t find any summon signs to do so. That said, while I was not able to invite someone to my world, someone else summoned me to theirs.

My summoner didn’t waste any time going straight to the boss which we were able to beat by focusing on one leg at a time to bring it down. Once lowered, we pummeled its head and repeated the process until we brought it down for good. Having learned the strategy for defeating the Golem, I returned to my world with enough confidence to take it on myself and finally get the special kind of dopamine rush that only defeating a difficult Souls boss can provide.

The remaining area bosses were similarly challenging and full of surprises — Pus-Ridden Beast looked and moved a bit like Cleric Beast from Bloodborne until he went prone and started dealing curse damage during the second phase. The Angel of Gertrude also started simply enough, but turned into a duo boss fight halfway through. Finally, the Omen of the Eclipse had not only two phases, but two full health bars — one for a tank phase and the other for a kaiju phase. However, this just made winning twice as satisfying.

However, I was disappointed to find that once the fog gates cleared, there was often nowhere else to go. For me, gaining access to new places is more of a reward for killing a boss than souls or items, so discovering that many boss encounters result in dead ends was a minor bummer. That said, they’re usually stunning lookout points where I was able to interact with a new NPC.

In terms of performance, I ran into some technical issues that took me out of the experience — in a few instances, literally.

The main tech problems I had were with other players timing out when summoning me, the server going down and the entire program crashing. Thankfully, the development team has been keeping a pulse on what’s happening, as there have already been patches to improve performance, rebalance enemy stats, and more. I trust that most (if not all) of the issues I was having will be worked out before long.

So far, I’ve only logged seven hours in this massive demo so I’ve barely scratched the surface, but I’m excited to check out the other areas, especially Carthus of the Sands (once the domain of High Lord Wolnir) with its sandworms rivaling the fearful size and power of those in Dune.

It’s still unclear what the development team’s timeline is for releasing the full mod or what exactly will be in it (PVP please!) but in the meantime, there are plenty of places to explore, things to discover and challenges to overcome in the demo alone. It’s clear that this ambitious new Dark Souls III mod has the makings of being a stellar unofficial prequel.

*

Dark Souls III was developed by From Software and originally published by Bandai Namco for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The demo for Dark Souls: Archthrones, was made by a host of multi-talented people within the Dark Souls community who are all listed in these credits. Dark Souls: Archthrones is exclusive to PC and requires Dark Souls III, and both DLCs. The release date for the full mod is still unknown.

Find out more info about Archthrones here.

— Thom Stone

The post PREVIEW Dark Souls: Archthrones appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH High-energy, fast pace and refined systems.

LOW Making the first boss a balls-hard Sekiro homage was a huge mistake.

WTF Where is that village key? And why are arrows so expensive?!?

I’m going to go ahead and call it right now — the worst design decision of 2023 is the first boss of Wo Long: Fallen Empire. Not only is this encounter brutally hard, it crops up in the earliest section of play, immediately after finishing the tutorials.

At this point, the player is still coming to grips with basic moves and they’ve yet to unlock most of the supplementary systems — multiple weapon choices, weapon and armor upgrades, magic spells, AI reinforcements, helpful status items, increased healing ability and even magical animals that can lend a hand. But at this point they’ve got none of it.

This is such a difficult first boss that I personally know of several people who quit the game and deleted it from their console after repeated defeats. The ironic thing is that (relatively speaking) this first battle is actually one of the toughest encounters in the entire campaign.

Even more ironic? Wo Long contains many obvious nods to FromSoft’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, the Souls studio’s most unforgiving and prescriptive work, and this encounter is a clear homage to Sekiro‘s final boss, which is itself an infamously tough fight.

It makes no sense whatsoever to have the first boss be as tough as he is because once the player gets past it — if they get past it — there’s a lot to enjoy about Wo Long, and almost none of it approaches the difficulty of this aggressively arbitrary dick-measuring gitgud contest.

Mechanically and in most aspects of production, Wo Long is similar to Tecmo-Koei’s previous attempts at the soulslike genre, Nioh and Nioh 2.

The player starts by creating a character and then takes them on a tour of various war-torn settings, this time in Three Kingdoms-era China. From here Wo Long is a standard soulslike experience — travel through villages, forts, battlefields and other locations, each offering a variety of soldiers and supernatural monsters to eradicate via third-person melee. Level up, gain new weapons and armor, and grow tough enough to withstand anything the forces of evil can dredge up along the way. However, there are several design decisions which make the experience more than the sum of its parts.

For example, while they seem almost identical initially, Wo Long‘s systems are more streamlined and easier to understand than Nioh‘s. It’s not as heavy or frequent with loot drops, for instance, and there’s a smaller number of options that the player will find.

It feels a bit limiting at first, but once I settled on weapons that I liked and understood the now-simplified armor upgrading, I invested in just a few pieces and they carried me through the entire game comfortably. Overall, spending less time and effort on fewer pieces of gear meant that I spent more time on actually playing, rather than min-maxing numbers in menu screens. I also appreciated that there was no FAQ necessary to understand the upgrading, which hasn’t always been the case.

Looking at the combat itself, I think it’s a great combination of the solidly satisfying swordplay from Nioh and some ninja-oriented parrying concepts from Sekiro.

Basic combat is fast-paced and essentially identical to older Tecmo-Koei work, only now more streamlined and with a clearer emphasis on aggressive play. There are light and heavy attacks (stance changes are gone) and when enemies are about to unleash an unblockable attack signaled by an orange circle appearing in front of them, if the player can parry right before the attack hits, they negate all damage and will often put the enemy into a stun state, ripe for a massive hit.

Although having the ability to widen the parry window would be great, it works well and most of the animations that need to be parried are easy to read, with the exception of a few which were constant problems. (For some reason I could never get the timing down on the swamp mermaids or the boss who looks like a big ball of hair.) That said, I’m generally terrible at parrying in any game, but I was more successful here than not, and I loved how flashy and exciting it is when a parry happens — the camera does a dynamic quick-cut and loud sounds of metal clashing ring out made me feel like a superhero, if only for a second.

I’m sure some players will be glad to hear that parrying isn’t required for the majority of play, but there are two or three bosses who are inordinately difficult if the player can’t land them reliably. I got through them, but they were harder than I would have liked, and again, being able to modify the parry window would have been welcome.

Potential difficulties aside, this parry system is also part and parcel of another systems rework.

Each character, player or enemy, has a meter divided in half. The left side shows how close they are to being stunned, and the right side is energy that can be used to unleash special attacks and magic spells. Taking hits and being defensive fills up the left half, while parrying and pressing the attack fills up the right. It’s a push/pull tug-of-war system that clearly encourages the player to be as aggressive as possible, since by doing so they will be preventing themselves from being stunned and will have a constantly-regenerating supply of energy for bigger attacks and various magical abilities.

I liked this system not only because it makes a lot of sense and is easy to read in the heat of battle, it avoids the usual issue of limited magic points or managing mana. As long as the player can press the attack and keep gaining energy, they can increase the ferocity of their offensive. On the other hand, if they lose momentum or start blocking too much, they’ll be left trying to catch their breath while an enemy swoops in to deliver the hurt. Overall, it’s a balanced, clever concept that I enjoyed, and it works well.

Wo Long also has two other systems worthy of mention — co-op and the stealth.

The co-op allows others to be called in to help with a tough boss, or a mean level. While I was never able to summon anyone myself (perhaps I was too far into the campaign, having a pre-release review copy) I was often able to help others out. For those who don’t want to engage with anyone online, Wo Long lets players roll with up to two AI companions in almost every area. I found that I was able to count on the AI buddies to draw a good amount of aggro during boss battles, and they were appreciably helpful when trying to make progress. As a way of letting players self-regulate their own difficulty level, this was ace.

The stealth was also greatly appreciated. Rather than engaging in the ‘traditional’ sort where one crouches behind cover or looks for shadows to skulk in, the player merely needs to be behind-ish enemies in order to surprise them and deliver a huge chunk of backstab damage. It’s entirely gamified and wholly unbelievable, but it works because it’s a decision made in service to the game as a whole. Wo Long is all about being as aggressive as quickly and as often as possible, and asking players to put the brakes on to creep around for a few minutes would fly in the face of that. As such, adopting this stealth hybrid was a marvelous choice.

I was already a fan of Tecmo-Koei’s style when it comes to soulslikes, so the what worked before still worked for me here, and the changes were good ones. However, there were a few issues aside from that first boss…

For starters, the story is a huge weak point. There’s just not much to tell — basically, an evil wizard is doing evil stuff, a whole lot of warriors want to stop him, and the player fights alongside all of them to get the job done.

While the script features many characters who will surely be familiar to fans of the Three Kingdoms setting, there’s little development or personality on display. Almost every chapter introduces new faces that come and go for no obvious reason, and many who pop up are indistinguishable from each other — most of the dialogue sequences are just repeated iterations on the themes of ‘honor’ and ‘friendship’. By the time I rolled credits, I barely had any sense of who anyone was with the exception of a small handful, and I often found myself wanting to skip through the cutscenes since none of it held any interest.

Mechanically, I had issues with some of the weapons. Although there are a wide variety of weapon types in Wo Long, they fall into a few basic categories and I found the ‘slow, but hits hard’ weapons to be basically unusable since combat is lightning-fast. There wasn’t a sufficient upside to hitting harder if the slow speed meant that the hits never connected, or that long windups left the player open.

While the story is a bore and a couple of difficulty spikes pushed my parrying skills to the max, Wo Long: Fallen Empire still manages to deliver a solid and lengthy action-adventure on par with their previous successes, but with a slightly different and more refined flavor. Tecmo-Koei is better at the soulslike genre than most, and I am a fan of what they do — I just wish the developers would have reconsidered that abysmal first boss. Being an homage to something famously hard was an incomprehensibly poor choice, and it’s a shame that the rest of the campaign will go unseen by the people who walk away in frustration.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Team Ninja and published by Tecmo-Koei. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, XBO/S/X. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX in Performance mode. Approximately 38 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. 2 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes assisting others.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore and Violence. The official description reads as follows: This is an action game in which players join a large-scale battle against an evil sorcerer in Late Han Dynasty China. From a third-person perspective, players use swords, spears, hammers, magic, and clubs in melee combat against enemies (e.g., soldiers, demons, ghouls). Combat is fast-paced, highlighted by large blood-splatter effects, screams of pain, and explosions. Finishing moves sometimes depict characters dramatically impaled on swords or lances. Several scenes depict multiple corpses and/or large pools/smears of blood.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Dialogue in the game is subtitled. Subtitles can be resized. When enemies become aware of the player (or the player’s stealth fails) there is an audio sound that plays. If the player is looking directly at the enemy that becomes aware, there is a visual cue that shows their awareness changing. However, if the player is not looking at the enemy who becomes aware, that audio cue has no visual component. Therefore, this game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Wo Long: Fallen Empire Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Finding out how the combat was supposed to work.

LOW The melee combat.

WTF Dolmen is a crystal, by the way.

I wonder how tired every developer is of guys like me sitting down and starting a review of their work by going “Ah yes, I can put a nice little moment here about the first time I played Dark Souls” but the comparisons are inevitable. So, before I get into trouble with my editor, let me tell you about how the new game Dolmen, by Massive Work Studio, made me think back to my first time playing Dark…

Sorry about that.

Dolmen is a third-person action game set on a mysterious planet. The task is to retrieve crystals while fighting off grotesque creatures. The player is required to master melee and ranged attacks, blocking and parries. There are only a limited number of ways to heal, with one source of health also being the source of power for their gun. In typical Souls fashion, health vials can be replenished at specific points in the world, but doing that will respawn all enemies that have been killed.

There’s an elaborate crafting system that allows for creating new weapons and armor. The twist is that each item can be fused with gear collected from dead enemies that imbue it with different stats.

There’s a multiplayer element too, one that I was unable to experiment with due to low player count.

All in all, Dolmen stays pretty close to the formula established within the soulslike genre. The melee, especially, is very much the usual standard attack, hard attack, circling enemies and looking for openings.

Unfortunately, this combat feels undercooked. I struggled to figure out where my attack openings were, and this was not helped by the awkward camera lock-on and the fact that a large number of the enemies will be blocked from sight by the main character, who takes up enough space on screen to obscure them.

The combat is made worse by unpredictability — one enemy will go down in two hits, while an identical foe will shrug off five hits and then drain half my health with a single swipe. If there is a proper pattern to the enemies I fought (beside a glowing symbol above their heads signaling an incoming unblockable attack) then I never figured it out.

The good news is that Dolmen is a sci-fi soulslike, so although there is a whole raft of bladed weapons, there is also an arsenal of very competent guns. Once I had upgraded from a flimsy pistol to a machinegun/shotgun hybrid, combat vastly improved. While ranged options are normally a clumsy afterthought in soulslikes, shooting became Dolmen‘s main event.

After that, I then figured out how to inflict elemental damage, and how to capitalize on it. It was at that point that Dolmen became thoroughly entertaining. Boss fights became games of cat and mouse where I tried to keep my distance and plug them full of shots.

Unfortunately, despite the ranged combat perking the experience up, Dolmen‘s general design feels like it is too indebted to soulslikes and ultimately suffers for it. The melee is not consistent, enemy AI is weak, the exploration is not deep, and the level design is just passable. What Dolmen does well is sci-fi flavored third-person shooting with a good level of challenge that isn’t a cakewalk.

I hope the developers get the chance to take a look at what worked in Dolmen and try again… as it stands, it’s too tempting to make comparisons to games like Dark Souls, and those comparisons aren’t favorable.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Massive Work Studio and published by Prime Matter. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. 0 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Gore and Violence. The official ESRB description reads: This is an action role-playing game in which players search an alien world for samples of a unique crystal. From a third-person perspective, players search various facilities while looking for clues and battling hostile aliens in frenetic combat. Players use swords, axes, and pistols to kill insect-like enemies. Combat is highlighted by gunfire, impact sounds, and blood-splatter effects. Cutscenes occasionally depict characters stabbed through the chest, and some environments depict mutilated/disemboweled alien corpses. Alien limbs can also be seen on the floors of some environments.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. The game is fully accessible without sound, as I found that no audio cues were needed for successful play.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Dolmen (Xbox X/S) Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Chills will course through your body as Tim and Richard make powerful amends for a grave oversight. And then: A great deal of Elden Ring talk, a wee bit of Death Stranding talk, and absolutely no Star Trek Picard talk (next time, we promise). Plus a look back at the rhythm classic Audiosurf. Boldly go! It’s an all-new Bridge Crew!

The post The Bridge Crew 17: Wail of the Nightdreamer appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

During the (approximately) six hours I’ve spent in the Lands Between during the recent Elden Ring closed network test, my initially-high expectations were quickly met – and then surpassed with ease. The feeling I was left with after the trial period is one of genuine interest and intense anticipation to dive back in. It seems that not a single minute of the three full years FROM Software reserved to develop this vision went by in vain. I was also glad to see that George R.R. Martin’s contributions are present and impactful, his influence seen in some deep layers of lore, worthy of peeling off and revealing one by one.

Elden Ring is an open-world soulsike – and just let that sink in for a moment. Fans of the worlds FROM has created are certainly familiar with the intricate craftsmanship they’ve witnessed in places like Lordran and Lothric, but this is indeed next level. In Elden Ring we have vast areas full of hills that roll on into the distance, but that doesn’t mean the scenery is empty – no, it’s thoroughly sprinkled with tons of secret dungeons or wondrous items waiting behind unassuming rock formations.

Similarly, players will again have to keep a mental map of each area, keeping in mind where skirmishes may happen – enemy positioning still incites those famous FROM “gotcha!” moments, only now they’ve been spread out across miles and miles of in-game world. The result is nothing short of a marvel as the feeling of discovery is still present as it was in the earlier titles that made FROM famous — all of which were significantly smaller in both scope and ambition.

To accommodate such renewed freshness, Elden Ring’s initial philosophy is different than it was in Dark Souls, and in my opinion, it’s for the better. Rather than discouraging players and slapping them down even in the tutorial area (the usual FROM trick) this brave new world is far more accommodating for first-timers. The layout is quite open, utterly captivating to explore, and devoid of minions waiting to attack (at first.) Also, while outside of combat our stamina won’t drain, so we can take it all in as quickly or as slowly as we like.

Furthermore, our character is light on their feet, able to jump and land with a shield-breaking strike, but can also crouch and remain hidden. By opting for a silent approach, I was able to score many backstabs swiftly, never once breaking the flow of play. The ‘bonfire’ mechanic is given an overhaul too. Instead of needing to pause and rest whenever we run low on healing, Elden Ring rewards good play by offering new ways to care for ourselves. For example, defeated groups of enemies always replenish the estus flask. Also, the hills are full of helpful herbs that can be used in recipes, thus creating a wider assortment of healing salves. As a result, whenever I received some damage, I found it preferable to continue fighting or to scavenge around than it was to ride back to the nearest ‘bonfire’.

Such exploits are made all the more enjoyable by the addition of a ridable horse/goat creature. By utilizing a special whistle, the beast materializes out of thin air, instantly letting the character press onward. It can also be called upon during battle, allowing us to outrun a mob or switch to rapid hit-and-run tactics. Plus, while riding we can perform short speed bursts, jump attacks or even double jumps – if paced correctly, we can access some unreachable-looking areas. Additionally, by standing on specific ‘wind hotspots’, we can soar dozens of meters in the air while maintaining control over where we’ll land. The act of traversing this golden-green world on a majestic mount is a blast.

But what about the combat itself? Well, in this sense Elden Ring is a soulslike through and through, though it does mimic Sekiro’s quicker pace, smoother animations and a focus on stealth. That said, it’s still a stamina-based system where keeping a close eye on enemy action is key. The test content was populated by a wide variety of otherworldly horrors, each with elaborate attack patterns begging to be explored and dissected – and, as expected, the many bosses I found were all memorable and disturbing highlights. It might be an open-world experience, but the formula here often distills back to many well-known and well-loved Dark Souls qualities.

Elden Ring might not succeed in luring in fans of the broader action-RPG genre due to the fact that it carries the Souls torch further up the mountain and never lets go of FROM Software’s fundamentals, but for fans like me who expected some well-trodden ground, Elden Ring’s new take was beyond satisfying. I can’t wait to dive into the full version!

Elden Ring will be released on February 25, 2022, and will be available on XBO, XBX/S, PS4/5 and PC.

–– Konstantin Koteski

The post Preview: Elden Ring Closed Network Test appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The abstract stone level. Simply stunning.

LOW Being near death and failing to land a health-restoring parry.

WTF The underdeveloped concept and lack of amenities.

Ever since the blockbuster success of FromSoft’s Souls games, plenty of developers have been wanting a piece of their pie, but few have managed it. Most often, designers take the wrong lessons away from the work — they miss that the secret is not in following From’s footsteps so closely that the material is duplicated, but in taking the feelings and concepts generated by the work and then going in a new direction.

Mortal Shell is the debut from Cold Symmetry, a group of four industry vets starting out on their own. After completing the adventure I’d say that their work is only half-successful, but they’re clearly swinging for the fences.

Like most soulslikes, Mortal Shell offers third-person melee combat that employs a stamina bar to prevent spamming attacks or dodging. Also identical to others in the genre, it features a cryptic, impenetrable story heavy on text-based lore and mysterious characters. And of course, if a player dies they must run back to their corpse to claim the currency there, or else it’s lost forever. In many ways Shell is so similar to an actual Souls game that it could easily be mistaken for one. So where does Cold Symmetry deviate from the formula?

Let’s start with the premise — past the standard soulslike trappings, the player is an undead called the Foundling who’s so frail that any enemy can kill them in one hit. To survive, it must inhabit the dead bodies of fallen warriors it finds.

This is a fascinating concept in the context of an action game, and it was essentially all I knew about Mortal Shell for most of its pre-release period. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the biggest areas where Mortal Shell disappoints.

Rather than forcing the player to adopt new tactics by limiting them to certain bodies in different areas, or even designing scenarios where one body might be more advantageous than another, there are only four inhabitable corpses (total) and they function as builds — one is high HP/low stamina, one is high stamina/low HP, one is balanced, and the fourth… well, I honestly can’t recall what the last one does because not only are these options largely interchangeable, Cold Symmetry goes out of their way to discourage the player from experimenting with them.

When the player is at Mortal Shell’s hub, they’re free to jump between any of the bodies they’ve found, along with any of the weapons offered — again, four. However, when away from the hub, players must use consumable items to change bodies or weapons. Knowing that a player has a limited number of times to swap equipment puts a huge damper on trying new things.

Another wet blanket on experimentation? Each of the bodies has its own skill tree, and none of the abilities carry over to the others. Earning enough resources to unlock skills (extra damage vs single opponents, no stamina depletion while running, etc.) takes a while, so there’s little incentive to switch to a body that’s got no perks. Of course, the player can grind out resources with a body they’ve upgraded and use those materials on one of the others, but by that point they’ve likely grown accustomed to the form they’ve been using and the only reason to change would be for the novelty of it, or for pure completionism.  

With these choices in place, the body-swapping ‘hook’ of Mortal Shell is nothing more than a standard character build/inventory system like any number of other games, but made prohibitively difficult to use thanks to draconian limitations.

There are other aspects of Mortal Shell that feel underdone at best, hostile towards players at worst. For example, Cold Symmetry has a serious aversion to save points — while the geography of each world is quite small, the slow pace of play means that it can take a fair amount of time for players to crawl their way forward. There were plenty of areas where a few more save points would have been welcome.

The starting hub area is a confusing mess. It’s a samey, green swamp where every part looks identical to the rest, and it’s tough to navigate. I had to consult friends and a YouTube video to locate new areas because I kept doubling back and missing new places to explore.

Other issues include a heavy reliance on group encounters with no way to kite enemies away from the crowd and no way for a player to handle large numbers until they’ve found special weapon upgrades. Also, it’s easy to miss the main hub (I did) and the item needed for the crucial parrying skill. Such a key thing should be given to the player right off the bat.  

Speaking of parrying, Mortal Shell only offers a small number of healing items, and none of them are very effective. Instead, the devs want players to use parrying to stun an enemy before draining life from them. It’s high risk/high reward which is fine in and of itself, but there are no options for players who struggle with the parry timing (me!) and there are no ways to mitigate it — no gear to increase the parry window, nor any way to reduce damage when a parry is missed and the Foundling eats a sword to the face. There is a distinct air of ‘git gud’ in this aspect of Mortal Shell and I didn’t care for it.

So this is quite a laundry list of things that Mortal Shell doesn’t do well. Why did I bother to finish it, and ultimately, enjoy it? Mostly, it comes down to the parts that do pop.

While the parrying was problematic, the Foundling also has the ability to “harden”. While this is a great setup for a joke, it’s also a fantastic mechanic where the player can turn themselves to stone for a moment and tank through absolutely any incoming hit, small or large. It runs on a cooldown so it can’t be abused, but being able to shrug off one attack as part of a valid combat strategy feels different than standard blocking and also functions differently since it doesn’t use the stamina bar — it’s a power that exists outside of the normal souls repertoire, and it’s excellent.

Also appealing is that Mortal Shell focuses almost entirely on melee encounters with weapons that feel weighty and cumbersome, and animations that successfully communicate the inertia and heft that a real skirmish would have. Swinging a giant sword feels like it takes ages compared to other games, but it hits like a truck when the blade connects, and seeing a foe get blasted across a room by the kineticism of the blow communicates a quality that few action titles capture. Planning strikes requires extra thought, approaches must be deliberate, and mistakes are punished. But when the timing comes together and a sword hits exactly where and when it was meant to? It’s satisfyingly sublime.

Also, while the swampy hub area was awful, Mortal Shell made up for it with other areas that look amazing. Of particular note was an area made out of massive cyclopean stones that begins in a wide-open space before transitioning into a chokingly narrow tower, and eventually into an abstract dreamscape suspended in the clouds. It was honestly breathtaking, and one of the best levels I’ve seen in any game this year.   

While there were many aspects of Mortal Shell that I didn’t care for, the bits that worked for me really worked. The final product is far from perfect and I’m not sure that I’d even recommend it to anyone except the hardest of soulslike hardcores, but beneath the underdeveloped ideas and questionable design choices is a pool of talent bound for bigger and better things — Cold Symmetry’s work shined brightest when it veered away from standard Souls, and I’m interested to see them take it further.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Cold Symmetry and published by Playstack. It is currently available on PS4, XBO and PC.This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated Teen and contains Blood, Language, Use of Alcohol and Violence. Although it’s full of dark and sinister imagery, the actual violence isn’t terribly graphic as these things go, consisting of some occasional spurts of blood but no actual dismemberments or gore that I saw. Moonshine is a consumable item.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Subtitles are available for all dialogue. They cannot be resized or altered. There’s one boss in the game who can briefly turn invisible, during which directional audio cues are used to help detect where he is. Aside from that, noises emitted by enemies frequently alerted the player to nearby danger — these cues are matched by a flash on the player’s parry weapon, but it’s easy to miss. Although playable without sound, players with hearing difficulty will be at a clear disadvantage.

Remappable Controls: The controls cannot be remapped. The Y-axis can be inverted.

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HIGH Landing Shinobi Executions on some vicious bosses.

LOW I miss finding new, fashionable types of armor in the world.

WTF The memory sequences are a time paradox just waiting to happen.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice takes place during Japan’s Sengoku period and centers around the exploits of our hero, a master Shinobi known as Wolf. Found on the battlefield at a young age and trained to kill his enemies in whatever method is most convenient, he soon has to trot off and rescue his kidnapped lord — who just so happens to have the secret to gaining immortality.

Things don’t go particularly well for our hero, though, and it isn’t long before he winds up having his left arm cut off and replaced by an unrealistically awesome prosthetic that can catapult him across vast distances and have numerous nasty implements fitted to it in order to give him an edge during combat. While use of these tools are limited to prevent spamming, having a spring-loaded axe shatter the enemy’s shields or launching firecrackers to blind nearby foes are better than ever compared to his old, fleshy human arm.

It’s a good thing too, because most of Wolf’s enemies aren’t screwing around. In traditional From Software fashion, even weak enemies can quickly murder players who aren’t paying enough attention. That’s where one of Sekiro‘s main gameplay twists can be found — when Wolf dies, he can resurrect immediately and continue from where he dropped dead if he’s got the ability fully charged before going down. These charges can be replenished, but if he’s defeated without one, it’s back to a save statue.

While it’s possible to kill enemies in the traditional manner of simply emptying their life gauge, most fights come down to breaking their “posture” by continually deflecting their attacks, battering away at their guard, and avoiding (or countering) unblockable attacks. Once they’re off balance, they open up to an opportunistic deathblow that tends to end fights in a hurry.

Deathblows look awesome, incidentally. The whole posture system leads to spectacular finishers being performed on nearly every foe players encounter – instead of a dainty little slice across their face as in most games, the Wolf is more likely to ram his sword straight through their throat before wrenching it out sideways in a quick, elegant (and violent) kill animation reminiscent of Ninja Gaiden 2‘s Obliteration Techniques. These never got old for me, even after five playthroughs.

The boss fights are great too. Ranging from monstrously-skilled samurai to supernatural horrors, each one has a distinct moveset and range of weaknesses for players to overcome. Small mistakes can be deadly, and even casual attacks can inflict major damage to Wolf, but learning their blind spots and weaknesses is immensely satisfying. From a mounted samurai with a massive spear to an Ogre who’s apparently watched too much professional wrestling, there’s a solid group of powerful foes to overcome.

However, for those hoping that From has finally cracked the secret of a solid lock-on system and a camera that doesn’t go straight to hell when things get busy in tight quarters though… yeah, we’re gonna have to keep waiting on that one, unfortunately.

As a ninja, the Wolf doesn’t have to take on his enemies face-to-face all the time, though. It’s actually a great idea to swing around from ledge to ledge on a grappling hook, dragging isolated guards into bushes and slitting their throats, or leaping from rooftops to plunge a sword through their hearts. There’s plenty of opportunity for skulking around and picking off potential foes before they’re even aware of Wolf’s presence, and it’s a lot easier dealing with two peasants in a fight after whittling down their numbers than an enraged mob of samurai.

Many will compare Sekiro to Dark Souls given From Software’s recent legacy, and the influence is clear to see. That said, this isn’t an RPG — it’s a stealth action game, and despite having a reasonably large open world to explore and multiple treasures to discover, it also cuts out a lot of the trademark things Dark Souls and Bloodborne were known for.

Sekiro is a single-player adventure from start to finish, with no invading or summoning other players for backup. Wolf also only gets one outfit and one main weapon throughout his journey, so there’s no experimenting with various movesets or changing his build. The Shinobi tools are handy, but they’re not as wide an array of techniques as players familiar with From might expect.

That said, there is some leeway in what the Wolf can learn throughout his quest. Certain skills can be unlocked with experience points — things like attacking from the grappling hook, additional healing from medicines, or replenishing health on successful deathblows. It’s not possible to grind out more health, so options are definitely more limited than in From’s other work, but these additional tricks can help a lot.

Whether this more focused approach will appeal to fans of Souls or Bloodborne will differ from player to player – personally, I love the renewed focus on combat and traversal, but I also missed creating a custom character and hunting down cool outfits. Also, the derelict temples and snowy mountain passes of feudal Japan may be beautifully rendered here, but the world is more one-note than their previous work and offers less inventiveness to discover throughout.

Those are small niggles however — and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is simply not those games. This is is a challenging and finely-tuned ninja action title with an emphasis on split-second timing and attacks of opportunity, and features one of the best combat systems I’ve seen in years. I’m not sure it’s enough to topple Bloodborne for me, but I do know that it’s a damn fine experience for those who’re willing (and able) to adapt to its punishing rhythm of combat. It may be too difficult for some, but I’ve been starving for an adventure like this for a long, long time, and it delivers exactly what I was hoping for.

Disclosures: This game is developed by From Software and published by Activision. It is currently available on PS4, XBO and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via retail store and reviewed on the PS4 Pro.  Approximately 45 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed multiple times with the platinum trophy achieved. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore and Violence. There’s a lot of pitiless murder constantly happening throughout, so as awesome as it is, maybe keep the kids away from this one.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: While Sekiro can be played from start to finish with subtitles (they cannot be resized) and there are numerous onscreen prompts displaying enemy behavior, I can’t help but feel that it will be a harder game for those unable to hear audio cues that lack visual components — I mean, that bastard on the kite is one obvious example.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

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HIGH It’s a slightly updated Dark Souls!

LOW It’s a slightly updated Dark Souls being sold at a premium price point!

WTF Shouldn’t this just be a free patch for the PC version?

While I’m sure that most gamers are familiar with the Souls series by this point, let me recap — they’re a series of fantasy action roleplaying games where players attempt to make their way through areas chock-full of enemies and traps ready to kill them at a moment’s notice. There are a host of spells, ranged weapons and melee weapons to discover and utilize, and players are constrained by a stamina gauge that limits their ability to wade in and start chopping away at adversaries. Evading, blocking and running around the place will also drain stamina quickly, so it’s important to be mindful of expending it so that there’s always some left for emergencies.

This is a tight and rewarding combat system the likes of which is rarely seen in RPGs. That said, death comes quickly to the impatient, so tactical and methodical murder is generally the best way to approach combat – preferably with a decent shield at hand to ward off enemy blows. Or, perhaps some will prefer to fight at range with spells and bows? Also viable depending on which build players opt to go with as they level their character and specialize in their ability to tank hits, cast sorceries or wield heavier weapons and armor.

Dark Souls takes place in the land of Lordran, a place so diseased and bereft of hope that just looking at a screenshot is enough to give most players an unexpected dose of tetanus. However, despite the appearance, it also happens to be incredibly well designed. It’s filled to the brim with things to discover and shortcuts to unlock, and is just open-ended enough to let players head off in any direction to discover something new. Skilled players can break the standard path of progression to tackle more difficult challenges earlier than usual, which also allows them to get their hands on better equipment sooner. This isn’t an open world in the general sense, but the freedom to explore is handled very well indeed.

It’s also surprising how much about Dark Souls I’ve managed to forget over time – and this is coming from someone who put hundreds of hours into the original and even produced guides on Youtube for it. The experience is bursting with easily-missed secrets and time-limited questlines that become impossible to complete upon killing a certain boss or travelling too far into any given area. It’s a labyrinthine affair, even to those (like me!) who’ve walked this path before.

While it remains a gripping adventure title worthy of the acclaim it’s received over the years, the biggest problem I have with Dark Souls Remastered is that it has to be shoved under a microscope in order to find out what’s new. The changes on offer here, most notably a sixty-frames-per-second boost and 4K resolution bump, are the kind of things most PC gamers would expect to find in a free update patch. Of course, it’s nice to see it available on current gen consoles, and it does come bundled with the excellent Artorias of the Abyss DLC included, but compared to something like the recent Shadow of the Colossus remake, it’s an underwhelming update.

There are a few other changes, but they’re even more miniscule than the minor bump in texture fidelity. Covenants can now be quickly changed between at bonfires once discovered, and there’s room for a couple more players during online play — and that’s essentially it.

On the plus side, the infamous descent into Blighttown will now be a little less rough – while it was poorly optimized and ran like a slideshow back then, it’s now humming as smoothly as the rest of the game does. However, there’s nothing to be done for the noticeable dip in level design that occurs in the final section of the adventure, though — Lost Izalith still looks like it was simply never finished, and the Tomb of the Giants is enough to cause players conniptions. And the Crystal Cave? Still a brief trek through mediocrity that can’t hold a candle to its immediate surroundings. Coming off the immaculately designed Sen’s Fortress and then journeying into one of these areas… the difference in design quality can be startling.

So, Dark Souls Remastered is a surprisingly mundane update to a now-legendary title that helped break all the rules of what videogames could aspire to. The core experience is still a truly fantastic, deep adventure that should be played by pretty much everyone who can tolerate a stiff, unyielding challenge – but the minimal effort put into this remaster also smacks of a fairly lazy cash grab. New players should dive in without a second thought, but for those who’ve traveled through the Kiln and back before… well, just be aware that there’s almost nothing truly new on offer here. Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by From Software and published by Bandai Namco Games. It is currently available on PS4, Xbox One and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4 Pro. Approximately 45 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. Multiplayer is intertwined with single player, though the game can be played completely offline.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated Mature and contains Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity and Violence. There’s a lot of horror style enemies and bodies littering the place, though there’s not much a great deal of excessive, graphic violence like dismemberment or the like.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are a lot of situations where being unable to hear audio cues will directly affect a player’s ability to play the game – the twang of a crossbow cluing them in that an arrow is incoming from offscreen, or the rumble of a gate being unlocked in the distance. There aren’t enough visual aids to fully overcome these issues, though familiarity with the game over time would likely help deal with these issues.

Remappable Controls: This game does not offer a controller map diagram, but….

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HIGH Making it past that blasted angel gauntlet

LOW A disappointing lack of closure

WTF The super mega final boss of all Souls is…..some guy

If Hidetaka Miyazaki is to be believed, Souls is done for the foreseeable future. As I said in my original Dark Souls 3 review, I see this as a good thing. While I thought the series’ grand finale in the main game was well-executed and enjoyable in its own right, it was clear that it’s time for this universe to be put on the shelf for a while. Having been explored in breathtaking detail by all manner of players and numerous lore hunters, the sense of mystery the series was once known for is, for now, gone.

This brings us to The Ringed City, the second and final DLC for Dark Souls 3, and ostensibly the final piece of Souls content that we will get for some time. After the disappointing Ashes of Ariandel, the onus was on Ringed City to deliver a fitting sendoff for the franchise. While the experience was more memorable than Ariandel’s fluff, it has only reinforced that Dark Souls has reached the end of its life cycle.

The DLC takes place in the eponymous Ringed City and surrounding areas. The level and enemy design on display is solid, providing several memorable stretches that helped wash Ariandel’s taste away. Still, there’s nothing here that series veterans haven’t seen before. There are big, lumbering enemies, little annoying ones, a few hidden paths and secrets, and some tough bosses. “It’s like Dark Souls” has become its own catchphrase over the past few years, and this DLC is……just like Dark Souls.

While it’s serviceable enough in a mechanical sense, The Ringed City fails to deliver the closure that is built up to throughout both pieces of Dark Souls 3 DLC. There are numerous lore points during play that are ostensibly A Big Deal, but they all fizzle out by the end. After spending more than 400 hours with the series, it was deeply disappointing to me to see so many promising notes capped with such a meager payoff.

Now that we’re at the end of the Souls series for the forseeable future, I feel it’s important to note that it finished quite a bit differently from where it started. A far cry from the subtle genre-bending of Demon’s Souls, the later entries settled into a fairly predictable (yet still enjoyable) formula, and The Ringed City illustrates this settling perfectly. For something as landmark and innovative as Souls has been, ending its run in such a rote way is the clearest indication that downtime for the IP is badly needed. Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This DLC was obtained via retail and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 15 hours were dedicated to completing it once, with all time being spent online.

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The original Dark Souls was my least favorite game in the venerable Souls series by a pretty wide margin. The reasons are numerous, but in a nutshell I just wanted to be done with it by the time I got to Gwyn. I was so aggravated that I skipped the Artorias of the Abyss DLC, which is regarded by many as the high point of the entire series. Being as obsessively completionist as I am about these games, I have to go back and take care of it before Dark Souls 3’s final expansion is released. I turned to GameCritics’ resident Dark Souls apologist Mike Suskie for guidance and counsel. The latest portion of our correspondence is below, with more updates to come as I progress through the game. Enjoy!

The Dark Souls Letters, Part 1

The Dark Souls Letters Part 2: Gaping Darkroot

The Dark Souls Letters Part 3: Fournstein and Kingsmough

From: Richard Naik

Hey Mike,

So Duke’s Archives. This place and Sen’s Fortress are what kept me going after the horrors of Blighttown on my first playthrough. Out of all the areas in Dark Souls this is the one I remembered the most about, and the second trip was, as expected, a treat. Between the layout, the location, the enemies, and the boss, I feel like this place tells it’s story better than any other area in the Soulsborne universe.

The story of Seath in particular I think is my favorite piece of lore in the entire series. An outcast dragon betrays his own kind to the human gods, gains fabulous wealth in the process, and then becomes a mad scientist obsessed with immortality and kidnapping young maidens. That’s an awesome myth. Seath has even more significance for me now since the two sequels both reference him so heavily, plus Logan’s state after he begins to learn the unfathomable knowledge in the archives is even more poignant now that I’ve seen what happens to Duke Tseldora and Oceiros in the sequels.

As for the level itself, walking outside onto one of the balconies for the first time and seeing *everything* is the most satisfying moment in the game. The archives plus the Crystal Cave is a great symbolization of Seath’s madness, with the crystals taking over the library like weeds taking over an orderly garden. This isn’t a newfound appreciation since I liked it lot during my first playthrough as well, but once again, DSFix and 60fps make this place absolutely amazing.

And Seath himself, good lord. I know you’re a fan of Gaping Dragon and that’s definitely a good one, but Seath is my favorite monster design in the entire series. He’s a three-tailed fairy dragon for god’s sake, just the right mix of fearsome and majestic. I’m still disappointed that I was never able to find a good Seath statue to put in my office, because if I’m going to have one of those ridiculously expensive things that keep coming out with video games, I want it to be him.

The one complaint I have is that Seath has curse abilities, and without the Cursebite Ring he can be a rough time. One thing I’ve noticed this time around is that Dark Souls has a habit of punishing the player *very* harshly for not having some specific items in certain places. It feels like an illusory way to make things seems much more difficult then they actually are, and I’m glad it mostly went away in the later games.

Still, great level, great boss, great lore, just great all around.

Now all that’s left before the DLC is Catacombs and Tomb of the Giants, which I honestly remember nothing about other than the skeleton dogs and the darkness gimmick. I know this place gives a lot of people fits, but I don’t recall it being all that bad. We’ll see.

From: Mike Suskie

Hey you impatient bastard,

I see you’ve sent me two letters since I’ve had the opportunity to respond, so this one’ll likely be longer than usual. Or maybe not! I haven’t written it yet. We’ll see.

The incongruousness of Ornstein and Smough is honestly one of the things I love about it. The fact that they’re so wildly different makes it easy to focus your attacks on one or the other, depending on your play style. Thinking back on some of the series’ boss fights against multiple foes, my enjoyment of such battles tends to rest on how different they are. The nadir, for me, is the second phase of the Darklurker fight in Dark Souls II, where the guy (gal?) literally just clones himself (herself?) and now you’re fighting two of them, with the same movesets and everything. Just feels like a lazy way of inflating difficulty to me. With Ornstein and Smough, it’s easy to pick a target, and each actually results in a drastically different second half.

As for why they’re together, although there’s speculation as to why they’re still around (they could be one of Gwyndolin’s illusions), they originate as two of Gwyn’s bodyguards, with Ornstein in particular being the leader of the Four Knights of Gwyn (the other three you’ll meet in the DLC). Dunno if you noticed, but the two elevators in the back of the boss chamber are actually different sizes – one for Ornstein, one for Smough. So they do belong there.

By the way, on the subject of Anor Londo, have you forgotten about the Painted World of Ariamis, or are you just not doing that this time? I’d also point out that there’s a nifty little Easter egg if you try to attack Gwynevere. I won’t spoil what happens, and maybe you did it already on your first playthrough, but it casts a very different light on this entire area and makes accessing the Gwyndolin fight a bit less complicated.

Now then, the Duke’s Archives. This is one of the creepiest areas in the series for me – all throughout it, you get the sense that what’s happening here is WRONG, somehow unnatural and impure. The use of crystals to portray corruption isn’t really like anything I’ve seen before, and the alarm that plays when the guards are summoning those octopus monsters on you gives me chills. All makes sense, too – Seath is into experimentation and is trying to cheat death. The buildup to this fight is among the best of the series, as the game teases both Seath himself (in that must-lose fight) and the area where you’ll be killing him (when you first get that balcony view of the Crystal Caves). Even the music that plays during the Seath battle is unsettling, like it belongs in a funhouse. Ugh, just a masterfully done area.

On my first playthrough of the game, Seath was actually one of the most difficult bosses for me, for a very specific reason. Remember how I said that the rapid-fire pace of the Four Kings fight reverts what you’ve learned about taking things slowly and with tremendous caution? Well, the Seath fight inverts another important Souls tactic: staying behind the enemy. In this battle, you absolutely want to stay in front of Seath, because the tentacles at his back and sides will give you an absolute thrashing, especially if you’re between him and a wall.

It was especially frustrating because this battle has one of the longest run-ups from a bonfire in the entire game – every time you die, you’re taken all the way back to the Archives and have to make the long trip back down through the Crystal Caves, past a number of golems and over a couple of damn invisible walkways. And the clams. BAH.

But yeah, on subsequent playthroughs, I was amazed how much easier the fight was when I just stayed in front of him and just rolled away from his curse spells. Now it’s one of my favorite bosses in the first Dark Souls, with some damn excellent accompanying lore to boot.

As for the Tomb of the Giants, I saved that area for roughly the end on my first playthrough specifically because I’d heard so many people complain about it, but by that point, I’d seriously started to find my groove and found it pretty straightforward. Plus, again, you get some unexpected views of other areas. Just be careful with Pinwheel. Snicker.

From: Richard Naik

Hey you timely bastard,

As I received this I was typing up my next letter about Tomb of the Giants, so you came very close to receiving *three* letters with no chance to respond.

Regarding the Painted World, I did go there after beating Ornstein and Smough, though I was so excited to talk about Duke’s Archives I forgot to mention it. It’s a cool area to be sure, made more unique by the fact it has a boss that I refuse to fight on principle. It goes back to Demon’s Souls and it making me murder Maiden Astrea in order to progress — I felt *really* bad after that. Priscilla just asks you to leave nicely, and if she isn’t going to mess with me, I’m not going to mess with her. Beyond that I didn’t spend a ton of time exploring the area since I don’t think there’s a ton of useful items for my build.

Also yes, I took out the Gwynevere illusion and dealt with Gwyndolin just after completing Tomb of the Giants, just to tidy things up. That is indeed a nifty easter egg, and it makes total sense for Anor Londo’s brilliance to be an ruse given the state of the rest of the world.

Tomb of the Giants is a level I actually liked quite a bit. It’s one of the few instances where such an explicit gimmick works well, mainly since it maintains a good balance between tension and fairness. The tension is obviously because of limited visibility, but I feel like it’s fair since enemies have very short aggro distances (IE they don’t just pop out of nowhere in most cases) and the actual level is pretty short. It’s a neat little trick to make such a small area so memorable.

However, I had forgotten how big of a crock Nito is. Forcing you to take fall damage (absent the Fall Control sorcery) is bad enough, but the first 10-15 seconds of the fight can be almost impossible if he decides to spam that blasted screaming sword attack. It’s also another instance of extreme punishment for not having a specific item. Got a Divine weapon? You’re good if you can get past that initial rush. Don’t have a Divine weapon? I can feel the game pointing and laughing. Nito also has *the worst* boss run in the entire series, worse than the Four Kings. As I’ve said before, put a bonfire either at the boss gate a la Fume Knight or give me an easily accessible shortcut. Conveyed hardship through level design be damned.

And with that, it’s time for the DLC. I’ve always somewhat liked the fact that there is still a bit of Souls out there that I haven’t played. As long it remains unexplored, I’ll always be able to look forward to it, you know? However, given my recent mental state I think it’s an appropriate time to break the Emergency Souls Glass and go through it. I still need to finish off a few more upgrades, but other than that I’m ready for it. Any final tips?

From: Mike Suskie

Hey Richard,

I don’t have much to add other than to wish you luck and enjoyment with Artorias of the Abyss. Again, this is my favorite DLC of the entire series (though The Old Hunters certainly comes close) and likely my favorite stretch in any Souls game, and the bosses in particular are spectacular. You’ll actually get hit with one as soon as you enter, and my only advice is that when it pounds into the ground and sends out a big shockwave, lower your shield. Otherwise, you’ll get staggered. Took me a while to figure that out.

My favorite boss of the Souls series, Kalameet, is in here as well, and from what I know about you, I suspect Artorias will rank as one of your all-time favorites. Again, good luck and have fun. I hope I haven’t overhyped it.

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