Yeah, that’s fair. It’s a shame that off the final areas I think Nito’s might be the best?
I think it’s really cool that you see those butterflys in this area. Partially because it’s always nice when a game gives you a boss enemy as a regular enemy. But also because it really ties the world together. You think back and know “oh. That boss came from here.” It’s just one big world rather than what would normally feel like individual areas that are distinct and don’t really connect in any tangible way.
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The garden is pretty boring and empty … but I kinda like how it’s gently sloped down. It’s like finding a long straight corridor when you get out of a maze. You know where to go, you’re eased off the up-and-down craziness of the archives, and it prepares you for a boss that you know must be coming soon.
I’m not saying it’s a great area. I’m saying that in Dark Souls 3 it’d be flat and full of crystal crabs and progress’s would be hard to find. I.e. it’d be “better”, but actually worse.
Of course then the crystal plunge area is a sucky nightmare.
I like the slope and overall slowdown of the level at this point, i just kinda wish they had put a few more items in it to make it feel less empty. There are definitely some parts that feel like the physics engine is not a fan though, lol
Ah yes, the silent trudge back to where you did the really stupid thing, I know that feeling in dark souls all too well
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Hoo boy, Crystal Caves.
When I first went through them I actually enjoyed the area. I loved finding out about the invisivble paths (originally that one dev message wasn’t there and I also played offline). They are telegraphed well enough to figure out. But some people will not dare to walk on air so it’s good they added that message.
But again, I liked the area. After killing the boss I went back to see what I missed and I found the path with two turns and… Fuck. That. Shit. Sideways. I mean, sure, you got prism stones, you can also shoot arrows downwards (faster than prism stones and you can cover a longer area) but this just isn’t fun. Thankfully you don’t need to go there.
Sadly the gimmick wears thin after one playthrough of the area, so it’s good you can get through really quickly once you know where to go because the mandatory path is simple enough and the enemies are easy to avoid. The more dickish placements don’t even respawn.
This is probably the second worst area of the game. Or the worst, depending on who you ask at what time of day and how the weather is currently.
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I don’t completely hate crystal cave in theory, but it just feels like in a game where you’re taught to be extremely cautious and that every fall could potentially represent a massive loss, making the paths completely invisible except for snow flakes whose exact depth and position is pretty tough to gauge is just, oof
There’s a neat idea in here somewhere but the execution, like much of the rest of the end of the game, could’ve used more time
The crystals are apparently salt, according to the commentary.
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The Crystal Caves and its monsters just look so weird and alien compared to everything else in the game. You get the feeling Seath’s been mucking about with stuff that’s just WRONG.
Yeah, they totally nail the aesthetic of alien beauty gone horribly wrong here. That’s one thing the Souls games are great at, just creating a very powerful mood in any given area. Even if that mood is unbridled rage.
I’ve been watching through this lp this last week or so and it’s really good, I learned quite a few things and it’s given me a lot of food for thought on some of the design choices I’d never really given enough consideration, especially Blighttown as a whole which I think I appreciate a lot more having listened to your take on it. I don’t have anything to add to the ongoing discussion since I’m still not caught up all the way but on that note, just a heads up, parts 47 and 56 are missing from the Youtube playlist - I’ve been watching 'em with autoplay via the pl whenever I resume and while it was really funny to cut from “I’ll leave these two (crow peeps) alone” to SUDDENLY SURROUNDED BY BONEWHEELS I assume that’s not intentional 
The lowered hitbox at the end of the greatsword swings seems like it saves your bacon once an episode!
This is probably the first episode that doesn’t make me want to play Dark Souls. I’m am just plain bad at the game and can barely make it out of the Asylum at the beginning. Normally though seeing these episodes makes me want to play. Which is a sign of a good game. Crystal Cave makes me realize why I’m not playing this.
Perfect comedy timing with that fall 
I get that. Crystal Cave is one of the two objectively bad areas in the game. And probably the one more offensively so. It’s part of what people mean when they say Dark Souls gets worse after the half-way point, is flawed, or w/e other vague way they can can say it’s not perfect without using the word unfinished (which is something that we no doubt will get to shortly).
And now we come to the very end of this area, Seath himself:
Seath is a lot like Nito, where the fight isn’t completely awful (like Crystal Cave is), but there just isn’t anything interesting about it. He’s kind of emblematic of the issues that Souls 1 and 2 both had with creating interesting boss fights with gigantic enemies. Without special hitboxes on specific parts, fights with even things as big as Quelaag quickly turn into finding the place furthest away from their hurtboxes and wailing on their big toe until they go down. 3 finally managed to make some Big Thing fights that felt like more than dodging massive swings, though I suppose some people liked them more than others
I haven’t gotten around to recording more yet, but with the long weekend coming up it should be pretty easy. Guess we’ll see!
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I really like Seath, and this whole idea that he’s slowly kinda dissolving into some weird ass feathery crystal orb is fascinating…it kinda feels like he’s trying to grow skin for himself, seeing as how he doesn’t have any (or more likely a sort of cocoon of rebirth type thing).
It’s a shame he’s such an ass boss fight. The lack of bonfires is honestly the worst of it. You can HANDLE Seath, eventually. But GETTING to him…that’s eternal suffering.
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The impression I get from Seath’s design is less that he’s dissolving as a result of the crystal and more that he’s always been like a caterpillar that’s been cut out of a chrysalis. It’s mainly the small, veiny wings and the weird tentacle legs that do it, and he was like that in the opening cutscene before anything involving crystals really happened.
I think the crystals growing on his skin could be deliberately cultivated, as substitute dragonscales.
I’m definitely in agreement on the “crystals for dragon scales” thing, but I’m pretty sure we see ole skinless having legs in the opening cutscene, and looking closely at the art and model makes that cancerous crystal growth on his lower body seem all the more…abnormal. That said, it being a sort of chrysalis he’s trying to get back into/hatch out of works really well. Immortality through rebirth, becoming more insectoid with his wings and feathers, kinda like his own Moonlight Butterflies in a way.