It’s been quite a few months but I’ve finally played through both of the Dark Souls 3 DLC Ashes of Ariandel and The Ringed City. One thing I don’t understand is how the lore of the new worlds introduced here relate to the plot of the main game at all. In both cases, the player seems to be unwanted invader into what seems to be pocket dimensions, with Ariandel in particular being the inside of the painting that we already visited in the first game. Well, at least it’s not pretending that we’re there to save anyone or anything.
Both are excellent with the first DLC taking you through the a snowscape with a vaguely Viking theme and the second one set in a broken city. The new areas aren’t really big but the topology is broken up in ways that make finding a path through them convoluted. Often proceeding forward is a one way trip due to needing to drop down from ledges and the like, so you don’t have the sense of security of always being able to return to the bonfire behind you. It’s a very nice way of increasing the sense of danger. Even worse is that they place dangerous new enemies in the wide, open areas. Ariandel features the angels, nigh unkillable flying beings that rain death from above and are continually resummoned by their hidden summoner. This forces you to scurry from cover to cover as you try to make sense of an unfamiliar new level. The Ringed City similarly has summoners who can call on entire squads. In this case, the summoners are gigantic and hence easily visible but safely getting close to them is a challenge.
The selection of new enemies to fight is great as well. The emphasis here seems to be on swarming you with many enemies, the wolves of Ariandel being a prime example. Some of the enemies are so weak that it’s easy to underestimate them but the murkmen for example can do a lot of damage when they grab onto you and can transform themselves into a spell-like effect. Later on they even introduce more powerful enemies like the Harald Legion Knights in pairs which can be quite distressing until you discover their weak spot. For those who enjoy fighting against the knight type enemies, and I do, there are the Ringed Knights who can set their weapons ablaze. They’re a lot of fun to duel as the flaming versions of their weapons have a shockingly long range.
However the real challenge of Dark Souls has always been the bosses and these two being the end of the franchise naturally have bosses that many consider to be among hardest ever. The first DLC has only two bosses and the Gravetender was really easy for me. Sister Friede however was extremely difficult being fast, powerful and equipped with ranged attacks. I only beat her due to a bit of cheese. Having summoned Slave Knight Gael, we cornered her close to a wall and between the two of us managed to stagger her enough to keep her mostly inactive because this is indeed one of the rare bosses that is easily staggered,
The Ringed City has no fewer than four bosses. The Demon Prince is notable only because there are two of them and it’s easy if you’re willing to summon NPC help. Halflight is hard only if you play online and it summons a player for you to fight. I didn’t want to deal with PVP this time around so I just played offline. Some people apparently have trouble with Slave Knight Gael but I found his moveset to be easy to learn and easy to deal with. You just need to pull him away from where the lightning bolts will hit and refrain from being greedy.
Darkeater Midir however is just the perfect boss fight. One of my great regrets about the first Dark Souls was that I was never able to beat Kalameet and ended up summoning a couple of players in to help. I loved this as the best version of a Souls dragon fight. The thing about this boss is that he is perfectly predictable and hence learnable. It’s just that his attacks hit so hard and he has powerful ranged and area of effect attacks. Due to the need to be able to predict what he does, summoning help for this fight is also useless and it will just make his actions more random. I died many, many times, but the rush from finally beating him felt great because this is a perfectly balanced, fair fight. It’s exactly what a boss fight should be like.
One disappointment is that while the player base is full of praises for some of the new weapons introduced here, especially in the Ringed City, I didn’t feel much need to beyond my regular staples. I switched between my Refined Claymore, Hollowslayer Greatsword and Black Knight Sword as I felt like it and it was fine. I didn’t even feel much tempted by any of the new armor sets. I suppose it’s nice that they give +3 versions of all of our favorite rings but it would have been more exciting to give new rings with entirely different effects.
Overall there is without doubt a great finale to one of the greatest video game franchises of all time. I loved the level design of both DLCs and I enjoyed the sense of danger it gave me. Probably I was a bit overleveled however as the regular enemies weren’t that hard once I told myself to be brave but it’s all good. I suppose I do wish I understood a bit more of the lore of what is really going on but as always the atmosphere is what really matters. One final thought: the natural next stop would be to play Sekiro. But I’m not sure that what I’ll do. I’m getting too old to play twitch games which require a lot of dedication and persistence to beat and I’ve heard that Sekiro is a far faster paced and more difficult game. I’d love to try it but I’m not sure that I can.
