Demon's Souls: Three Years Later (Part 10)
Nov. 14, 2013Demon’s Souls: Three Years Later (Part 10)
I annoyed a Dragon to Death. A friend asked me to kill his dad. Pretty typical, everyday stuff occurred last time. I had left off near the corpse of my buddy that I killed and get ready to do some damage.
Chapter 10
The Contemplation of Copying This Into a Word Document to See How Long It Is(1)
I have a short window to play. I try to choose an area I think I can finish. It’s more story like if I can break things into segments with definable “acts.” After besting Boletaria’s heroes, I decide it’s time to go for a more venerable one. Without a shard of archstone, I walk back from my fight with Ostrava toward the Nexus via the Penetrator archstone. I make sure to kick the red eye greatsword knight’s body off the stairs on my way down. Gravity + rag doll corpse = always funny.
I venture from the Nexus to my destination. Shooting the first Reaper(2) from the ledge like always he kindly drops a stone like usual. I’m back in the thick of bones where Befowler and I parted company. I take out the little guys with little effort. I lure one of the bigger skellies in. I finish him with an attack, dodge, then another attack that interrupts him mid movement and makes it look like I know what I’m doing. I experiment on his buddy with the soul remains that he drops and in comes some divine retribution. The second big skellie flips out on the soul remains and uses his surprisingly wide hit radius to kill me. He never even looked at me.
Second time’s the charm. It’s funny(3) how often getting cute leads to getting killed for me.
On to the spirits of the damned. Insert Cheat Commandos joke here as I go up against the blue lasers they emit. It hurts. But I’m alive. I can work with alive. I make a grand discovery. They really don’t like being stabbed. So of course I stab them to death.
I’m pretty sure I know where the Reaper is but the last time I was here I correctly recalled the invisible smaller one. The voice suggests these are supposed to be the female ghosts. The dagger nearby and the assassination attempt this ghost tries on me make for a very nice little side story to this area.
I dart in and back out so she can’t get behind me. She likes getting stabbed even less than the larger ones. I glance at the Reaper. He still thinks he’s hiding. I hit him once. As he tries to fight back he swings himself right off the ledge. I walk down and know that the little side area is a trap. I spring it anyway and take a backstab for my trouble. I manage to beat both assassin ghosts and net two whole crescent grasses for my trouble. I think I’ll skip it next time.
Heading down I see a message warning me of an attack from the rear. This prompts my recall of where the next Reaper is. I bravely shoot his ghosts from a distance and run in. I quick turn and we both attack. I win and the rag doll physics from me smacking him into next Tuesday has him wiggle right through the floor. I don’t get the loot I saw that he had. Heading down into the slug(4) room I decide caution is the best practice. I take my shots carefully and kill the slugs. I activate the wisps(5) on my terms to trigger the explosions safely. I feel like the captain of the Boletaria Bomb Squad!
I have just a couple wisps to go before I can fully run around and collect all my treasure. While taking aim at a slug I get blindsided by an explosion. Whoops.
Since it’s the next time, I skip the assassin duo.
THIS TIME I just get rid of all the wisps first. They do me the favor of taking out a few slugs. Several sticky white stuffs later and a few other trinkets I’m ready for the “boss.”
I enter the fog pretty calmly. I think I recall how to do this fight. I know that IF (and it’s a big if) I get in trouble I can just hide behind the altar and shoot him. As long as you don’t go crazy on him he’ll never have a clue where I am.
I won’t bore you with any details of the “fight” but I will mention that this boss is really easy to taunt and take pictures of said taunts.
I feel a little disrespectful but all in all I’d say the picture was a good idea.
Guess how many times it took me to beat him. Come on guess. You’ll never get it. Unless of course you said “one.” Surprise surprise, I beat him in one try.
I suicide in the Nexus to avoid screwing up my world tendency and return to fight the Storm King(6). This fight is an incredibly cool concept and overall is done pretty well. I shoot a good number of his crew out of the sky and decide that I’ll try something different for this boss. I sprint down to the Storm Ruler. I’ve never killed him with the sword designed to do so (bows are really easy to kill him with so seriously, why bother?). I get reminded how easy his minions fall to the sword(7). It seems to have a really wide hit box despite what it looks like. It also one shots the little guys.
I face the King and take a few hits from his cruise missiles when he swoops ever so gently at me. I get two shots in with the sword. They do more damage than an arrow (I tested that later) but the recovery is much slower than the white bow. Let’s face it, archery is just bad***
He comes around again and my Kite Shield +2 is no match for thirty or forty of those things he throws out. I’ll come back to the King soon (with a bigger shield) but for now it’s on to other business since I have a short night to play.
Satsuki(8) was one of my biggest nightmares. I recall him being fast, hitting crazy hard and rolling. Always rolling. In the end, I think I needed to change a ton of gear so I could specifically have an “anti-Satsuki” build.
I start off by trying to intimidate him. I draw the skellie nearby in with an arrow. As he rolls toward me I adjust and shoot him right before he reaches me. See that Satsuki? That could be you! I think he saw it. I go and talk with him and he asks for the sword. Screw you buddy. I don’t trust you for a second!
My “intuition” about his character is correct and he attacks. I’m disappointed in how easily I take him out. Then I remember, it’s not this version that was the problem. To combat my disappointment in killing him so easily, I’m gonna have to challenge the black phantom version. At least I felt like a champ for a few seconds.
I recall I have a key from Ostrava. Time to see how Doran(9) matches up with the new and improved Skarekrow. He seems like a nice guy. He wants to see if I’m any good. He basically lets me stab him a large number of times. He takes a frustratingly small amount of damage per hit. It’s still not a challenge it just takes a while. I get the sword he’s guarding. Good for me!
I figure to get his armor too. I think you get that if you kill him. I hit him constantly for what feels like an hour. He finally decides it wasn’t accidental and attacks back. Now THIS is Doran. Faster, aggressive, combos. The works. My Kite Shield fails me again. I believe it’s time for bed. I’ll come back when I have something that isn’t so frustratingly ineffective against him. I know I’m unlikely to ever one shot him but at 22 per hit I just don’t feel like dealing with the fight. For the first time, the game feels a little cheap. I can dodge and weave and fight him head on. The only real difficulty it seems is his absurd defense. For an otherwise almost flawless game though this isn’t a major factor. Any other game and Doran is awesome. With a Souls game though he feels like a throwback to other games. Basically, he’s tough because of stats, not because of who or what he is. He’s still a good fight. Not great though.
WARNING! WARNING! IMPENDING RANT!!!
The Dragon God is still an awesome fight. Here’s why everyone should just face it and agree with me:
Pros- Amazing creature design, seamless animations despite the scale of the monster, tons of little details in architecture (did you go take a look at the spear launchers like I told you to yet?), tremendous atmosphere, great lore concept, getting to feel like a mouse
Cons- It’s easy to beat once you know the method, it doesn’t feel like a “fight”
Let’s compare him to other bosses shall we. Ones I’ve fought so far in this playthrough:-Phalanx-. Easy to win if you’ve discovered fire. Slow moving small army. Good concept, easy after your first time-Tower Knight- Archers add artificial difficulty and at most extra time to the battle. Once you know his attack patterns he becomes easy.-Penetrator- Hard to judge, Biorr did most of the work. His entrance is pretty awesome though isn’t it?
-Armor Spider- This boss can actually be a huge pain. The web ability is a really cool addition and adds a lot of stress. Tanking or hiding behind a rock with a bow are both effective but I’ve personally never fought this one and not have it feel like a boss fight. Great job From!-Flamelurker- Another boss that feels like a boss. Knowing his attack patterns will help but his aggression and area of effect attacks make that rib cage pretty appealing most times.-Dragon God- We already know how I feel about this one. Seriously, go look at those spear launchers. They’re neat!
-Fool’s Idol- Great concept. The rune traps are a good element. The setting is top notch. However, a bow will make short work of her. Her use of duplicates is kind of a one trick pony and there’s enough cover to make this a breeze for most builds.
-The Adjudicator- Cramped quarters can make this interesting. Unless you’ve done this fight before. Can you stand on a ledge and shoot a small bird? You can win this fight. Or the more boring approach. Can you walk in a circle? You’re good.-Storm King- I have a bow. I can win. Those things that killed me last night? I’m pretty sure that if I go all the way back up near the door there’s a spot they can’t hit me at….
And now we come to my real point. An often idolized figure in Souls lore. A figure who is loved by many and placed on a pedestal of awesome for some reason.
The Old Hero(10).What can I say about this fight? Do you like being a bully? Were you the type of person who picked on the kids in the Special Education programs at school? Because that’s what this fight feels like. You walk into a room with a person with a severe disability and you’re tasked with the goal of “fighting” him. I might have lost this fight once. The first time ever. I quickly realized he couldn’t see me. Step 1 of any fight is recon in a Souls game. Most likely you will make a mistake and lose. So keep your eyes open for the next time. You should always be learning. After about 5-10 seconds of him obviously having no clue where I was, combined with the wrappings over his eyes, I came to the correct conclusion he was blind. Shooting him with the bow (his sword looked pretty dangerous) confirmed he wasn’t able to see me. If I died it was because I got greedy. If you piss him off enough he can get just enough presence of mind to assault you.
So last night I went into the fight knowing I’d win. That’s rare in Souls games. I mean I just admitted that a skeleton got me when he wasn’t even paying attention to me. A wisp got me even though I knew it was there. One mistake is all it takes to send you back to an archstone. One mistake.
Sadly, it’s hard to make one mistake in this fight. It’s not like I’m going to accidentally hit R1 four or five times in a row. He’s not that fast. He can’t turn around and get me by accident. He hit me once with a sweeping attack as I yipped around his heels like a chihuahua. But he didn’t kill me. Without a one shot it’s not like I can’t heal with plenty of time before his next “assault.” One mistake is hard to come by here.
I took the taunting picture in the last chapter as part of this point. For most of this fight I was able to casually walk (and run) behind him with no repercussion. I stabbed his lower leg whenever I felt like stabbing his lower leg. No pressure. Why should there be? I’m picking on a poor disabled guy. He may not know whereheis, let alone where I am.
Here’s another picture that looks like I’m yawning:
Do you know how much time it took to set up pictures of me taunting and yawning during this fight? Sadly, not much. I can do it at my leisure. It’s not like he’s a threat. If the gesture menu came up quicker you’d see that I actually started to set up the photographs when I was standing right behind him.
It sounds like I’m pretty down on this boss. I’m actually not. It’s just a great example of how the Souls games are set up. The bosses are generally hard. They can kill you. But for the most part I’d say Souls bosses are well designed regardless of difficulty level. Don’t get me wrong, The Old Hero is still a great experience. The character design and behavior is unique. The story behind it is great. The setting couldn’t be better.
But why is he on a pedestal and the Dragon God reviled? Is it because of the spears? Because there’s two hits in the confrontation that don’t come from your weapon? Is it because the only time you get to hurt the Dragon God with your own two hands is after he’s pinned down, unable to move? Because that’s a silly reason for the hate in my opinion. The Old Hero fight is less of a challenge. Assuming an archer or magic build there is zero risk in either fight. There’s no need to get your hands dirty. So in that case, there’s no fight at all. Just repetition. They’re on equal footing. Take away the range idea and the Dragon God is far closer to a fight than the Old Hero. I literally walked into the Old Hero’s legs a few times and he never knew. I smacked him with a sword and he never turned to face me. Not once did he pose a real threat. Taking the Dragon God on with a sword is a different affair. Take a second too long breaking a pillar and you’re gonna get a face full of dragon fist. Even after you pin him down, killing him with the sword is dangerous. Those little plumes coming out of him? Yeah, those can kill you. There’s actually a small chance the Dragon God will hurt you, even after he’s down.The Old Hero just gets bullied.
Let’s all take a step back and give a nice long slow clap like an 80s teen movie for From for the great boss designs overall, and make sure we give an extra clap or two to make up for the Dragon God hate.
(1) The final version that’s out there somewhere is over 50 pages and that’s not with the footnotes this site gets so….yeah…it’s long
(2) This means I went back to the Shrine of Storms
(3) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
(4) Slugs are, uh, slugs. They’re pretty big and can drop sticky white stuff
(5) Wisps are little glowing energy balls to go with the sticky white stuff area. They float in a predetermined path and getting too close makes them asplode
(6) The Storm King is the biggest Manta of all time. He circles his domain and casts off smaller mantas like the type already seen in the Shrine of Storms. Like the little ones he launches spikes at you. At the far end of the area there’s a sword embedded in the ground called the “Storm Ruler.” In this arena and in this arena only it uses a special attack that’s like a focused blade of wind
(7) While I’ve never killed the Storm King with the Storm Ruler I have gone back to the area and killed the little guys plenty of times
(8) Satsuki hangs out right at the beginning of the Shrine of Storms if you have Pure White World Tendency. He asks about a sword you might have found and wants to have it. Regardless of what you tell him he will attack you. He’s just a fun guy like that
(9) Doran is the “old king.” You find him in his tomb although he seems pretty healthy for a guy in a tomb
(10) The Old Hero is the boss I didn’t name above since I knew I was going on a rant here
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Lol Skare are you trying to taunt Emergence? 😈
Pretty much always 😉
*she stands before Allant’s foggy arch…alone, again. She has taken half his hp, three-quarters of his hp then she makes that one fatal mistake. She can not make many fore she is gimped with intention.
She sighs, “ok, here we go again”…this time she will lead in this deadly dance with the wayward king.”
Enjoying your journey muchly so! 😀
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