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???)
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.
There are way too many skeletons in a place that’s supposed to be filled with… okay, you know what, it’s still too many!
And if you give me a few months, I can write up my 40-page manifesto on why a giant worm in a lake is really one of the most famous Dark Souls characters out there.
The worm is actually Old Man McLoyf, the most important character in Souls lore. In fact, every character is secretly Old Man McLoyf. If you don’t know who he is you are not a true souls fan. Get outta here. Tch… fucking peasants.
The Demon Ruins is a strange place full of monstrous figures doing the strangest things when no one is looking. Let’s not spend too long here or we might see… something… that we’ll forever regret.
Venture Capitalists, hit me up for more ideas on new dating apps for young ghrus; I’m sure it’s an untapped gold mine!!
Let’s go to the Old Folks Demon Home and put down the grandpa who’s been causing trouble. Then we’re off to the beginning of the next area. And then we’re going to help out some people. Yup. That’s what it is. “Help.”
It’s time to check out Irithyll, one of the best areas in the game! I trade out Lobo for a new commentator, but he’ll be back… eventually. Anyway, we’re going to explore a majority of the Boreal Valley’s most impressive city, even if its inhabitants aren’t too friendly (to the shock of absolutely no one).
Always good to see another DS2 liker, I told you there were more of us!
DS3 is very good at setting up and using jump scares, I know at least one critic (Chris Franklin/Campster) likened the game to a haunted house because of how effective the game is at creating those moments. The series has always been good at using jump scares, but I think it wasn’t until Bloodborne that it really doubled down on them, and that has definitely carried forward into DS3.
I really like the dungeon. I even like the health bar butchering jailers. They add a lot of tension to what would otherwise be an easy area. People compare this to the Tower of Latria from Demon’s Souls but in my opinion these similarities are mostly superficial (they are both prisons, there’s creepy jailer guys).
The jailers are cool. I like that their status effect is uinque, like the librarians in Cainhurst. It’s not just another type of poison. Tension is exactly right: It’s unexpected, and you’re not prepared for it (if it’s not your 32nd playthrough).
It appears that the dungeon might be for the Wretches that we’ve seen. Theweapons they drop allude to them being failed forms of dragons. It also seems that - because of their heads - they may be dragon/human hybrids, but were locked away due to being failures.
This kind of goes hand-in-hand with a certain future boss who looks pretty similar to these guys.
