When the fire fades, the ash will rise... Let's Play Dark Souls 3

I really like how this DLC ends. Mostly how it brings a finality to the setting. Also, I feel like the DLCs were sort of analogies to the endings, but more on that when Wottermelon gets to that part. Almost there, O Deprived Undead.

Oh hey, it’s the Dead Sea and the Time Crash. Glad to know that the Dark Souls series ends with Schala just merging all the timelines together into one ideal timeline.

Oh, that’s right. I wanted to capture a particular highlight from the fight that I really enjoyed, and it’s quintessentially why I enjoy this fight so much.

The power-up to his second phase is so good, I love it!

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Oh, and this is for @IGgy:

wotter does what Miyazaki don’t.

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update

Guest Commentators: none

46

It’s the end! Well, sort of, anyway.

We’ve had a decently long break with the DLC, but it’s time to get back to the game at hand and deal with the final boss! And we’re in for quite the throwback surprise!

Since we’re here at the end, what is everyone’s favorite Dark Souls boss fight?


So, thanks again to everyone who made this possible and participated all over this thread! But we aren’t done just yet, so stay tuned for the last two videos on New Year’s Day!

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My favorite boss fights? Well, let’s go by game, shall we?

Dark Souls 1 - Pinwheel: He killed me once so he’s gotta be good.
Dark Souls 2 - Royal Rat… Aaaah… Mohawk Rat: Got a mohawk.
Dark Souls 3 - Treeballs: It’s like like Ric Flair, very old and one of his signature moves is just him falling down.

Okay okay, real answer.

Dark Souls 1 - Artorias: My favorite part isn’t even the fight itself but the storytelling surrounding it, the way you make his journey in reverse and eventually find what messed him up so bad. Also: Motherfucker is not right handed and fights you with his sword in his right hand and doesn’t even have his trademark shield, holy shit you’d be so fucked if that guy ever fought at his full power!

Dark Souls 2 - lol: All right, let’s be fair, though. Alonne was kinda cool. Mostly the game fails to make a lasting imrpession with it’s set pieces and bosses.

Dark Souls 3 - I’m really torn on that one: If it was just the base game I’d probably say the Twin Princes, if only to be a bit contrarian. With the DLCs it depends on my mood. Gael and Friede are both top notch. And I love leaving Soul of Cinder alive for after I do the DLCs and then I go do the last step of the Lapp quest because that is the true ending of Dark Souls III. Fight me!

But yeah, good LP. It got much better once I was in it, of course, but you still did pretty good.

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Dark Souls 1: I liked Quelaag because I’m horny for spider women. If you are a spider lady please hit me up. I loved Gwyn, the music was just so feels. And to that person who dressed up as the Fire Keeper and acted like a mini-boss after invading me in the woods, that was fun.

Dark Souls II: Gaping dragon rules. The chariot boss in the undead prison is a puzzle boss done right. The smelter demon was legit bullshit. Demon of song lets me vent all my Pepe ire. And those three pigs in Majula are the hardest boss in the series don’t @ me.

Dark Souls 3: I suck at this game and can’t even find my way to the first boss but I guess I’ll say Iike the Dancer because of her super lovingly detailed butt.

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Pretty embarrassing that the first thing your new dark following sees of you is your butt sticking straight up in the air. Learn to pass out better, Ashen One.


Oh right, Dark Souls bosses. Well, I know very little about fighting most of them, so I guess I’ll rate by style.

DS1: Ornstein. Just Ornstein. I like his armor, and his general Dragoon feel. And unlike Smough, Ornstein actually respects the buddy knight aesthetic.

DS2: It’s been ages since Slowbeef’s Dark Souls II stream, but I like Pursuer on a conceptual basis. And other than him, uh… Royal Rat Vanguard/Authority based on names alone.

Bloodborne: Nobody else has given a Bloodborne answer so fuck it I’m stuffing the ballot box with pieces of paper with “Lady Maria” written on them and nobody can stop me.

DS3: Sister Friede. She is on the positive end of the style + grace scale. All such measurements lie somewhere between her and Lanky Kong.
Also, her battle looks amazing and intense.

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Demon’s Souls: Maiden Astraea for being the sole redeeming element of the Valley of Defilement.

DS1: Artorias. The fight is just set up so well and is intense from start to finish. Plus its a dude in armor, which has always been Dark Souls best kind of boss fight. Not counting the DLC I would probably say Gaping Dragon just because I love its visual design so much.

DS2: Its hard for me to pick since the DLCs contained a number of really good bosses (and also the shit coop bosses but eh). I’d probably go with Fume Knight for being a really fun challenge, but runners up include the Ivory King (I especially love the entrance to that fight), Aava for being a really intense fight, and Sinh for being a good fight against a dragon that can still fly. From the base game I’d say either Smelter demon (I know people hate him, but he’s never given me issues) or Lost Sinner.

Bloodborne: Lady Maria, followed by Ludwig’s second phase. NonDLC answer would be Shadows of Yharnam.

DS3: Soul of Cinder is the best final boss in any game in the series imo, and is just such a cool send up of the games that came before it. Runner up is either Pontiff Sulyvahn or Aldrich.

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Dark Souls 1: Definetly has got to be Gwyn non-dlc, or Artorias in the DLC. Particularly with Gwyn the soundtrack really lends itself to being mercy killing for Gwyn.
DS 2: Ivory King for being one of the very few people who actually had their stuff together before going insane.
DS 3: Champion Gundyr, for being a failed DS protagonist fight. Outside of that the Soul of Cinder is also really really awesome.

Bloodborne: Lady Maria, or the Orphan of Kos for dlc. Maria really had a good reason for trying to keep people out of fishing village because that place is messed up. Outside of the dlc, i’d definitely say Megro’s Wet Nurse for the sheer creepy atmosphere.

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I still refuse to believe that “Pickle Pee, Pump-a-Rum” wasn’t an intentional dirty joke.

Anyway, dark souls bosses.

For Demons, I’ve gotta go with The Old Monk. Not only was he the original big goofy yellow hat boye, but that boss gimmick caused me to really interact with the pvp for the first time. I don’t think I would have ever gotten into that particular aspect of the games otherwise. Shame we’ll never really get to experiance it again. (Unless they remake it demons souls :eyes:)

For 1, it’s gotta be Knight Artorias. It’s the generic favorite boss in the souls series for good, good reason. I am definitely of the opinion that the best fights in these games are one on one duels, and they just absolutely nailed it here.

For 2, Im gonna go with the Sir Alonne. Again it is a great one on one duel, but theres so much going on with the fight in terms of story, which as I’ve said is why I look fondly upon the second entry. :smiley:

For Bloodborne, I’m gonna have to go with Micolash. Yes, there’s tons of great duel fights in that game (:heart_eyes:lady maria :heart_eyes:,) but Micolash represents the only good version of the puzzle bossfight that the souls series has ever produced, frankly. Dragon King and Bed of Chaos are rightly the most maligned parts of their respective games, and the Undead Chariot was fun but not too interesting. Micolash’s constant raving throughout the battle, the shifting dream lile battlefield, and the horrifying notion that killing him is returning his consciousness back to the dedicated husk his body has become all really make it stand out to me.

For 3, Im gonna go with the Dancer. In a series with such deterministic animations, the way she flows around the battlefield really threw me off guard. Plus, she presents an excellent prank oppertunity when you manage to convince people to kill Emma early.

Anyway, thanks for having me on. This was a fun lp and I’m glad I was a part of it.

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I can’t believe I never got the notion that Micolash was waking back up in his desiccated corpse of a body. Also his ranting is pretty good and explains a fair amount of the backstory behind the college.

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This is a tough question.

As for Demon’s Souls (which I’ve never played, only seen Let’s Plays of), it’s a toss up between the Old Hero and the Penetrator. Seeing how they enter the boss arena blew my mind when I first saw them in action. Plus, they really enforce a different mechanic that I haven’t really seen else where. The Old Hero is blind and tracks your movement with the sound of your armor, which hasn’t been a major mechanic in any Dark Souls game since. The Penetrator really stresses the player’s ability to dodge and avoid getting greedy when on the offensive.

My favorite Dark Soul’s boss will have to be Ornstein and Smough, because it gives a taste on off the rails the next few areas and bosses are going to be (for better or worse). The first part of the game has some reasonably familiar settings and enemies. When part 2 of the O and S kicks in, the tension kicks up like ten notches and the signals that it’s time to slay gods.

For 2, I’m going to go with the Duke’s Dear Freja, because it has a great build up to it. Walking through the Spider Church and seeing all of these massive spiders everywhere lends some real menace to the upcoming battle that really isn’t found elsewhere in the game. Same reason I feel the final bosses in the DLCs (and Alonne in Iron Crown DLC) are really good.

For Bloodborne, the Shadows of Yharnam are the first sign that things are definitely not as they seem and the game prepares it’s first of it’s really huge curve balls. A great teaser of what is about to happen and still isn’t the craziest thing to happen during that game.

And we get to Dark Souls 3. This is a difficult one because I feel each boss really helps in driving up the stakes in trying to figure what’s going on because each boss adds a new story element. I’ll go with wottermelon and say that gameplay-wise, the Dragonslayer Armor was a lot of fun as well as the Nameless King and Gael.

Also, at 14:22, could that be Anri kneeling there?

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I think that is definitely meant to be Anri, because we did get, uh, married, which I don’t think was meant to explicitly be Anri’s death.

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funal update

Happy New Year! And what better day to celebrate than the final Dark Souls 3 Update!

Guest Commentators: none

It’s finally time for the end! We’ve beaten the final boss, but we don’t have to go to NG+ just yet. There are still a few things left to do and a few things I completely missed before the total reset.


Although there were a few things I straight up missed in the initial playthrough, there are a bunch of things that had mutually exclusive routes or endings, so let’s take a look at what some of those things look like. To finish off the LP, we see what a few different NPC questlines could have looked like and the alternate endings.


Also, just in case anyone wanted these, I compiled two albums on imgur for the stuff from this LP.

The first is a compilation of the terrible, awful things I made for this game:

Second (and probably more palatable) is just all of the screenshots I took with binoculars in the game for the thumbnails, just without any of the overlays:


Thanks again for joining us on what I can only hope is the last entry in the Dark Souls™ canon™!

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So I’m going to be that guy and say that you missed something with your round up. Specifically, it has to do with that elevator for the Grand Archives to Lothric Castle. When you first take that shortcut and get down to the bottom, walk on the button again and quickly jump off to the church. Wait for another elevator to come up. Take that elveator down and at the bottom, you’ll find a Titanite Slab. Just another one for your trophy case.

Filthy speculation, tread here at your own risk

Also, the Ashes of Ariandel corresponds with the Linking of the First Flame ending (prolonging something that needs to end), The Ringed City corresponds with the Rise of Londor ending (searching outside the established game area but it would be for naught since there is nothing left to really have an adventure in) and the ending of both DLCs corresponds to the Extinguishing the First Flame ending (completely destroy the main setting in order to have a new one rise in place by others.). A happy dark soul to you.

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THERE’S TOO GODDAMN MANY OF THESE THINGS AAAAAAAAAGHGHGHGH

I’ll be asking the mods to close the thread this Friday evening, so if there are any parting comment (shots) you want in before it’s too late, now’s your last chance!

git gud scrub

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