So I’m done with Dark Souls 2, or at least I am with the main character I started with. I have no intention of going to NG+ but I’ve already rolled a brand new character that I’m using to experiment sorcery with since I never messed with magic much in the first run. With the main character, I’ve now killed every boss except for the Darklurker and the inoffensive Ancient Dragon. I couldn’t find Darkdiver Grandahl again after meeting him three times and turning down his offer to join his covenant. To keep things nice and organized here are my thoughts on each of the three DLC in order:

Crown of the Sunken King

• The vast, open world of this DLC consisting of Aztec-style pyramids connected to each other by walkways made a great first impression on me. I even loved the dim lighting. What cinched the deal for me were the movable columns scattered throughout the level and the way you’re encouraged to hit them from afar with arrows or something similar to open new pathways for explorations or just change the topology of the battlefield in your favor.

• I found this to be appreciably more difficult than other areas in the main game. Remember how I wrote about how I’d never irretrievably lost souls in the main game? Well, that ended here due to the death traps and the damned invincible Sanctum Knights. The Black Drakeblood Knights are no joke either, especially since I usually use a rapier and it’s very difficult to break their poise with one. Needless to say, I greatly enjoyed this increased difficulty.

• Elana is disappointingly a reworking of Nashandra, except that she summons minions instead of curse constructs. I found this fight to be hilariously random. My attempts went like this: first try, she summons skeletons, then Velstadt. I took down the skeletons quickly and ignored Velstadt since I had her down to very little life, but got greedy near the end and got killed. Second try, she summons Velstadt, whom I then concentrate on and kill with some difficulty. After a while she summons Velstadt again, what the fuck? I lose my cool and quickly die. Third try, she summons skeletons, which I quickly kill. Then she summons skeletons again later, which again I quickly kill. Elana herself then goes down soon after that. Looks to me like her difficulty directly depends on which minion she randomly decides to summon.
• Next up is Sinh. Okay, so he’s a dragon that flies around a lot and shoots fireballs. Let’s try a bow-only strategy while doing my best to dodge his attacks. Oops, looks like even my best bow does really low damage and it’s hard to consistently dodge the fireballs. Next, let’s try the same thing but with NPC summons as distractions. Doesn’t work either and he takes even less damage from my shots. Finally, fuck it, let’s bring my broken Santier’s Spear and run after him all over battlefield to whack at his flank. I had to chug Estus for this as I still couldn’t consistently dodge all of his attacks but it works. Fun fight!
• Finally we have the three enemy NPCs including the Havel clone. Naturally I bring the NPC helpers to even the numbers. They work as decent distractions while they last but they can’t take down even a single one of the enemies on their own and once they go down I follow shortly after. Finally I decide to make a solo attempt and run around like a mad man all over the level. Weirdly this seems to cause the AI of the enemies to glitch and they allow me to easily take them down one by one. This probably counted as cheating and I don’t think I could have won without the glitch but I’ll my victories where I can.

Crown of the Old Iron King

• Wow, having to walk across those iron chains sure feels intimidating and it’s pretty interesting that this level is mainly explored vertically. You start at the top of the tower and slowly work your way down. Having the ability to unlock the elevators and open new pathways this way adds some complexity to the level, but overall I think this level is like the Dragon Aerie in many ways. Visually impressive, but ultimately not that interesting.
• The Possessed Armor have an interesting moveset reminiscent of the Heide Knights. It’s cool that they have the ability to levitate bows to shoot at you. I think they could expand on this to create enemies that punish you if you try to snipe them from afar. The Iron Warriors look almost impossible to fight when you first meet them since the lava that intermittently spews out of their shoulders always breaks your poise. So it’s very satisfying to learn how to effectively fight them in melee while avoiding both their attacks and the lava.
• Of course, this DLC is known for having the hardest bosses in the whole game. In fact, the Fume Knight beat me. I tried many different tactics, solo or with NPC helpers, different weapons, but I just couldn’t beat him. I know that he’s a completely fair enemy but I just didn’t enough skill to perfectly pull off each of the needed rolls to get out of his way. In the end, I summoned a human and he proceeded to win the fight single-handedly, with a Mastodon Halbeard I believe, while I focused only on staying alive. Later, I realized that I could have specced myself to use the Havel Greatshield and that might have helped.

• Like everyone else, I got fooled by the Blue Smelter Demon. His attacks are big and slow and look like they can be easily dodged. But the way he can delay his swings make the timing really tricky to get right. After a couple of attempts, I remembered the Havel Greatshield, loaded myself up with magic defense gear and just tanked the most dangerous attacks. That worked surprisingly well and I beat him on the first try that way. I guess this boss was specifically designed to punish rollers.
• Sir Alonne is another boss that many players found difficult and I guess the run to his boss gate is kind of annoying but it’s easy enough to bring NPC helpers to do most of the work there and unsummon them just before confronting the boss. He also seems to be able to cross distances and strike very, very quickly but his combos seem short and without his weapon buff his reach is limited. Even if he hits you with his drain effect and buffs his weapon, the buff can wear off. In the end, I didn’t have too much trouble with him using the Havel Greatshield and I think it might have even been possible for me to beat him with the Defender’s Shield that I usually use.

Crown of the Ivory King

• This DLC didn’t make a great first impression on me. Sure, I loved the winter theme but after exploring for a while the level felt linear and uninteresting. The enemies hit hard and I was surprised when some of their ranged attacks occasionally manage to go through walls but they didn’t seem to do anything new either. I guess the Crystal Golems are a nice callback to the original Dark Souls and they can’t be back-stabbed.

• But then the snow melted and I realized that it’s possible to go through the whole level all over again and discover all kinds of new paths. Combine this with the new enemies are appear when the ice is gone and the interesting paths that you need to take to free all of the Loyce Knights, and this became my favorite level of the three DLCs.
• I was very pleased when I first encountered Aava. I was thinking that even the DLCs seem to be defaulting to huge humanoid knights as bosses. Challenging myself to come up with different types of bosses I remembered that one of scariest enemies in the first Dark Souls were the cat-like creatures you encounter in Darkroot Garden. ‘Lo and behold here is a giant cat boss. I couldn’t fight him with melee. It’s possible to block his claw swipes, but that doesn’t leave any opening for me to attack myself. Trying to position myself underneath him or at his flanks would lead him to do his quick 180 degree spin. Then I tried playing archer again with NPC summons as distractions and it worked perfectly!
• The boss is the Ivory King himself. I honestly had more trouble with the Charred Loyce Knights than the King himself. The first time I went into the Old Chaos, I charged straight at them, knowing that the good Loyce Knights were behind me. I got killed pretty quick. After that, I let them do most of the fighting and it was easy to mop up the remaining Charred Knights after them. The King himself was straightforward to fight after that, even with no Knights left to help me.

• Lots of people really hate the final, optional area of this DLC, the Frigid Outskirts. Mindful of this, I summoned all three of the NPCs available. It took me a few times because those Frozen Reindeer thing hit hard, fast and appear out of nowhere. But once I had learned the route, it was straightforward to bring all three of the summons the fog gate with decent health left. I used Great Heal with the Crown of the Old Iron King to top off their health when needed. Once inside, I’d planned on playing archer again but it seemed to be doing too little damage. So I waded in with my newly acquired Ice Rapier and it was over pretty quick. Not one of the NPCs even died. I even liked the design behind this area. In most video games, the enemies are reactive and it’s up to the player to decide when to engage. This level changes up this dynamic, so that once the Reindeers spawn in the blizzard, they charge towards the player, thus creating a constant sense of pressure. I wouldn’t care to play a whole game like this but I rather enjoyed this change of pace for one level.

Obviously I loved all three of the DLCs, much more than I’d expected. I’d rate the new areas higher than any of the levels in the base games. All of the bosses are harder and require some planning to defeat, making their battles much more memorable. By the way the most annoying enemy is all three DLCs is the stupid NPC invader with the lance, especially when he wears the White Ring and pretends to be good. In my game, I stupidly opened the gate to the Covetous White Demon before I managed to kill him. I died so many times due to having to fight both him and the Demon at the same time. The one time I succeeded by heavily damaging him and then chasing him all the way to the Demon pit and killing him before he managed to heal himself with Estus. Fuck that guy.