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

God damn it.

Crab. Broke my knife. Crab battle.

Guest Commentator: @Enrel


(The alternate title for this episode is “You Can’t Block The Swamp”)

The beginning of this game is a little light on boss fights compared to the end, so let’s go fight someone to make up for it.

We’re also going to meet up with a man so stoic, so shiny, so… mildly annoyed that we showed up that I think we’ll get along juuuuust fiiiiine.

A quick note about Orbeck that I never knew is that he won’t come back to Firelink for you if you don’t have 10 INT, and since I almost always start as Deprived, I’ve never been below 10 INT to notice.

If you’re below 10 Int Orbeck says (when asked to learn sorcery):

You’d better not. Sorcery is not for everyone.
And should never be forced. You have your own methods.
Sorcery need not be one of them. Don’t let it bother you.
Be on your way, then.
You’re Unkindled. Shouldn’t you get back to your duty?

It’s not as much of an insult as when Carhillion of the Fold basically says: “The light is on, but there’s nobody home” when you meet him in Yo Ho Ho Village in Dark Souls 2.

Guest Commentator: @Enrel

We’re going to begin to explore the Cathedral of the Deep because there certainly is a lot of it to explore. I also come the closest to having to start a Death Counter in this episode, but let’s hope that doesn’t actually happen… right?

Anyway, we get a cool new sword that has this badass description:

Executioner’s Greatsword

Greatsword of a debauched executioner used for beheadings.

This sword retains a keen memory of its executioner’s duty, and absorbs FP from each fallen foe.

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You mentioned not knowing how the Leech monsters flinch, and in my experience if you’re just hitting them with physical damage they don’t. They flinch like crazy if you hit them with fire though, to the point where its trivially easy to stunlock them even with just the basic torch. Not as cool looking a way to fight them as using fancy sword spins is though.

Guest Commentator: @Enrel

Getting through the “second loop” of the cathedral, we run into a few old friends, but there’s one who’s more noteworthy than the other. And I will try to make sure I never start too many videos with the same gesture in a row, or I might have to atone for it a bit more…

Also, I am including the three screenshots I took of the statue in question, so that Enrel or anyone else can show the rest of us what he sees:

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Something I really like about the design of the Cathedral of the Deep is that worship of the Deep clearly isn’t the original religion of this place. All the decorations are removable (even the poison-spitting statues), and there are more statue alcoves in the room where you fought the Deep Accursed than are filled, which seems slapdash. The candelabras and wall carvings have a different, more ornate art style than the statues. The ever-present red carpets are old and worn, but seem newer than the walls. Even the swampy area where you kill the slave giant is just a layer of corrupted something on top of the floor, and we see the same type of area in a different part of the cathedral, but without the corrupted layer.

This used to be a Way of White church before the Deep worshippers took over, right? Cathedral 1.0 seemed to be occupied with the surface-level decorum of religion, lighting votive candles, sitting in pews, and whatnot (which the Way of White was really into). Cathedral 2.0, on the other hand, seems to be about filth and corruption. The poison-spitting statues seem to be commemorating this event, where a classical Renaissance-style statue, which is crying about its loss, has a corrupted boil growing out of its back. The old has given way to the new.

A further note about giants: There are so many kinds of giants in Dark Souls, but the slave giants you kill seem to be the same type as the giants in Sen’s Fortress and the Giant Blacksmith. Is this significant? I have no idea.

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Defeating the Cathedral boss actually breaks exactly zero NPC questlines. In fact, it progresses one. you can do the NPC questline events in the Cathedral area at any point in time. You can even see these questlines through to the end after beating the game (except for one specific part that should be obvious if you played the game).

NPC questlines are much less screwy than most people believe. Although, there’s one specific part much later that can screw a questline up in an infuriating way, but ultimately it doesn’t even matter in gameplay terms. (But can you forgive yourself???)

There’s also one thing about the Cathedral that I only learned recently and I would love to lay down the madd triviaz here, but it eludes me right now.

Okay, that last bit is both a really good trick, and a really good way to un-trick, if you know it’s coming. A+ all round.

Guest Commentator: @Enrel

We’re going to finish up the Cathedral of the Deep with an… interesting boss fight. It’s not the worst one in the game, but it’s a little boring, to be honest. Anyway, before we get there, we need to find a certain someone and get some damn apologies!

And then we investigate the rest of Firelink and then we need to find a certain someone and get some more damn apologies!

It’s also Enrel’s last video (for now?), so let’s make sure that we visit the best character over and over and over.

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Guest Commentator: @IFS

Do you want to know what’s cool? A swamp that causes Poison!
Want to know what’s even cooler? Slowed movement through said swamp!

Farron Keep is an alright area, but I won’t be sad to see it done, however.

Our new buddy IFS joins us to talk least favorite areas, least favorite enemies, and a movie thought lost to the 90s.

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I still can’t believe you fact checked me on that stupid movie.

I remembered so little about that movie, that I was expecting to see a gun that shot swords, only to find that it was a “normal” shotgun. Thanks for nothing, Internet Movie Firearms Database!

The amount of well-known actors that ended up being in Romeo + Juliet was weird to see, because I could only remember Dicaprio being in it.

Farron’s Keep is a videogame-ass area. You literally do three things which appear unrelated to gain access to the boss! It’s like a Zelda dungeon.

And the decoration on the pillars make no sense. Why are there sculptures in bas-relief of the Four Lords? I can understand if Artorias is at play, because of where we are, but what point beyond callback is there to remind us of the Four Kings, the Witch of Izalith, and Neato, Lord of Death?

Ah, Farron Keep. Probably my favorite dedicated swamp area in the series. It’s pretty handholdy (fire guides you to towers 1, 2, and 3 in order, but forces you a bit out of your comfort zone for the last one) and doesn’t slow you down unless you go off the beaten path. These deep areas are telegraphed with the leaves or whatever it is on top of the swamp. I also love that there’s quite a few secrets/optional bits to the swamp which I’m sure we’re gonna see.

I’m also the guy who liked the Valley of Defilement and Blighttown, by the way.

You monster!!

Blighttown was a fine area. Thematically appropriate, a good mix of frustration and relief (like finding the Spider Shield in the beginning), a fantastic boss fight, and there’s an elevator powered by a dog on a treadmill. And if you don’t want to go through the worst part, there’s a way around it with the Master Key.

The worst part was the framedrop from having to render such a large area all at once.

The best part of Farron Keep is not the wall area with the Stray Demon, but it’s not far off.

E: I like how From split Blighttown into two areas in the sequels: DSII got the ramshackle vertical town, and DSIII got the poison pools at the bottom of the world.

Guest Commentator: @IFS

Well, that’s an ominous title, isn’t it? I hope it doesn’t foreshadow anything that’s about to happen…

In this video, we discuss joining a biker gang and then later a metal band, Lobo makes a joke that he should be banned for, and I show off a game feature that involves involuntarily going back to the last bonfire I rested at.

We also may have solved the lore reason for why almost no characters in the Dark Souls universe move their mouths when they speak.

Side Note: Did you know that in The Lord of The Rings, Rohan was neither a man nor was it a horse? I know, right! Who knew?

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Guest Commentator: @IFS

This is it. This is the episode where everyone collectively loses their minds, including me. We’re off to a party in the catacombs and all of my least favorite bony friends got invited.


There’s one thing in this episode that requires a tiny amount of explaining: the Lord of the Rings is dumb and me not knowing anything is clearly not the problem…

Anyway, in between recording this and the last episode, we got to talking about LotR, and Rohan came up (because it was mentioned in Farron Keep) and, not knowing what that was, I looked it up and saw a picture of a horse on a flag, so I jumped to a clearly reasonable and not stupid assumption that Rohan was the horse and not… you know, a country.

Either way, much like getting parried by enemies with no head and one arm, this flag is now the bane of my existence:

(How did I manage to get stuck with two people who both know a lot about LotR???)

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Seems fitting

I love the Bone Zone a lot. The bone katamari controlled by a guy in a hat, the boss, the skeletonness: everything is just great. It’s lore-inscrutable, and largely unconnected to anything else, but as a oneoff it’s alright.