Saturday, April 1, 2017

Dark Souls 3 The Ringed City Part 1 Review



*SPOILERS FOR THE DREG HEAP AND DARK SOULS III*
One of the biggest complaints about the Ashes of Ariandel expansion of Dark Souls III is that it was too small and far too contained for it to satisfy anyone who had played through DS3 and had any remaining questions about the story, or just what could happen after we ended the world/ prolonged its existence. The Ringed City seems to come almost in direct response to that, though it doesn’t seem entirely obvious at first.
The Dreg Heap area is the one that we saw most advertised in promotional material, for the most part. The Ringed City itself is a part of the DLC, but is connected to Dreg Heap insomuch as the High Wall of Lothric is connected to the Undead Settlement. And I mean that in more way than just a metaphor.

The Dreg Heap is essentially one massive spiral down until you reach the only boss arena of the area, though it is a fun boss fight with interesting story implications for a certain NPC. It does, for the most part, feel like the collision of the world we’re seeing from the Kiln of the First Flame bonfire before the Soul of Cinder boss fight.

I really like this area as a whole. It works as an amalgamation of what’s come before and does feel as if the world has been compressed into one giant area. There are, of course, bits and pieces that don’t work for me, but as an overall aesthetic it’s an area I can get behind and enjoy. Much like how I enjoyed the village in Ashes of Ariandel more than the icy parts before, I do prefer some areas of the Dreg Heap over others.

There are some internal inconsistencies within the entire level, though. Most of the time these inconsistencies are noted by developer messages so you have a decent indication of them, but from a world-building perspective it doesn’t make sense. The biggest inconsistency in gameplay is, of course, fall damage. One of the big highlights that From Software pointed out was that fall damage would be somewhat nullified in The Ringed City since most of the level is about taking long falls into dangerous areas. Yet there’s one part where the Player runs along a tree branch and takes a fall and they take damage? Why there?

I don’t want fall damage nullified completely in the DLC, but you could at least make a proper divide that fall damage does nothing in the Dreg Heap but does do something in the Ringed City. I just find it odd that the Dreg Heap has so many more areas where fall damage should kill you and the Ringed City doesn’t, but the fall damage concept is inverted between them.

One thing that also has me scratching my head a bit about the area is the placement of snow. It’s there, partially, as an excuse for players to not take any fall damage when they fall in a heap of the stuff but why is it snowing? We’re technically in the same dimension as wherever the Kiln of the First Flame is now and there’s no snow there. It’s possible that this isn’t snow, it’s just white ash coming from…somewhere…but it’s placement is off-putting and probably only exists because one way into the Dreg Heap is through exiting the Painted World of Ariandel after talking to the Painter and defeating Sister Friede.

Still, the name at least amuses me. It is indeed a heap, though where the Dregs come in I’m not so certain. I wonder if it’s a translation error. “Dregs” as we understand them in DS3 are mostly associated with the Aldritch Faithful, where they consume “dregs” of humanity, since those are what apparently can drag someone into the Deep. We face enemies similar to those encounterable in Irithyll, and do have a black-blue aura like something along the lines of Aldritch, but are also a brand new enemy to the game that haven’t been associated with Aldritch before. Their placement in the level is fine and is just like all skeletal Dark Souls enemies: they go down fast but in a swarm take you out in a few hits.

One of the more jolly enemies that still baffle me are the members of the Harald Legion. Apparently they were a squadron of warriors who sought the Dark Soul, as we and Gael do, but were corrupted. It’s clear they’ve become corrupted by the Dark, given how their headless husks are actually emanating with some sort of dark energy. While they are tough to fight, they have a key weakness: attacks from above. It was a very fun surprise to do a plunging attack and, much like the Ancient Wyvern, basically take the thing out in one hit to its weak spot. Otherwise they’re just a damage sponge, but not entirely impossible to take out.

It doesn’t mean I still don’t run from them. If I can’t get the vertical advantage against them then there’s little chance I can defeat this enemy, and I’m just going to take off and flee. The first time I encountered one was in the Farron Keep-like swamp and just got demolished in one attack by a surprise leap attack. Needless to say that set quite a ton.

One of the stranger enemies that you can find here is a Desert Pyromancer, who leads a part of Thralls against you. Thralls don’t make sense at all, so I’ll just ignore them and talk about this Pyromancer, who can be a bit of a pain but their approach is similar to the daughter of the Witch you fight in Lost Izalith. The only connection she serves to the area is that Gael wears a similar set of armor, but he doesn’t use pyromancies? It’s strange.

There’s also a pair of Lothric Knights, but their location in conjunction with one of a certain enemy makes sense. They also can be found in a replica of the initial Lothric Castle local you enter upon fleeing from one of the Angels, which was a nice surprise and a good indication that the Player will be seeing more of the familiar world than they realize.

That strange feeling of “I’ve been here before” is used to good effect in the area. Every time I thought, “Oh, this is just Lothric Castle,” I was immediately crushed by a new, more dangerous spin on the area. But to that same effect, when I came upon an area that looked and functioned similar to Farron Keep, I immediately popped some Moss Clumps and headed into the poison. There’s a sense of deconstruction and conquest throughout the area until the final bonfire, which is just there as a means of leaping into the boss battle.

What makes this part of the DLC so frustrating, though, are the Angels. Oh God, those Angels.

The first one is fine, if not a little unsettling. At first I was giddy and thought, “MOONLIGHT BUTTERFLY!” Given how the Angels attack with a similar moveset, with those little darts of light, I thought I was right. However when I happened upon the Lothric Knights, I realized my folly and got even more excited because I thought we would finally learn more about the Angels and their presence with Lothric!

Instead, I was just all-around frustrated. Why are they in the Dreg Heap? The Knights I get, they’re part of the area that’s been crushed down. But the Angels? They’re there, it seems, so that large areas of just running have something going on. They’re there to introduce and push a greater stealth mechanic into the game that is quite frustrating. Where the Player needs to get involves three stealth areas and a big hope that you can outrun those darts.

I spent a solid hour and a half wandering the latter parts of the Dreg Heap near the swamp just trying to find where to go because every time I thought I saw something, the Angel would light me up with darts. Then when I finally maneuvered my way there and saw something else, I would die.

Dark Souls is challenging, yes, but the popular mindset of, “Oh, you’re supposed to die” is wrong. You die in the game because it’s challenge. The game has never outright pushed you down into lava unless it has a reason. It trains you to understand that we, as Players, are greedy. I know that Crystal Lizards lead me to traps, but damn it I want that item! Environmental hazards have never been the way in which the Player dies if they play carefully. In Bloodborne, the Great One that gives you frenzy in that stretch to the castle (forgive my not remembering) is a hazard but if you just sprint through you’re fine.

Here? The Angels will take you out and you can’t outrun them. Their wings are so large and their range is so far-reaching that you just get annihilated by them almost instantly. And the worst of it all is the moment where there are two dogpiling you and it leads to an okay item at the end of that trail. They’re so needlessly frustrating. The worst part of it all?

They can die and immediately respawn. If you kill an Angel, they respawn at their original spawn point and you’ve just wasted your time with them. It makes exploring an interesting area extra difficult and just makes you run past things that might be cool. The best execution of them is the fight against the Desert Pyromancer, because there’s a gaping hole in the area that the Angel is watching from. It’s a “don’t step in the light” type of thing that works pretty well for the fight and makes you focus on the combat ahead while also being aware of your environment. Mind your surroundings.

Still, the area itself is large and full of some fun goodies for anyone that’s fully played through Dark Souls III. It feels like a proper expansion on the game compared to Ashes of Ariandel and it’s still only the first half of the DLC, which definitely makes this expansion worth the money.

The boss fight is also pretty dope, too, from sheerly a combat perspective. It’s an obvious callback to Ornstein and Smough, though I found this fight incredibly easy compared to that one. The Demon in pain and the Demon from below are basically pushovers compared to those two knights, but still provide their own challenges with a unique twist in the game for the story. Defeating one before the other does inform how the Demon Prince ultimately forms, which is pretty cool. Technically it is another three-bar boss fight, but I prefer this one way more than Friede because the two initial fights have low HP and the Demon Prince fight is difficult but very manageable, even from a first go-around.
Gael being summon-able here is also a bit cheeky from a lore perspective. He hunts for the Dark Soul, as we’re told to by the Hag at the start of the area, but it seems as if he’s unable to get past this part without our help. Throughout the area his phantom has been guiding us along until now, where he needs us. Summoning him makes the first boss fight ridiculously easy, regardless of which Demon you choose to challenge. I always go for the Demon in pain; while it is more difficult, it does mean that Gael will have more HP for the second round of the boss-fight, where he effectively becomes a distraction you need to keep alive for the Demon Prince.

But while the combat of this fight is all fine and good, I just have to wonder, like the Angels, why is this here? This is, confirmed, the same Demon Prince that Prince Lorian took down and had his fire sword forged from. So, shouldn’t the Prince be dead? Or did he just split off into the two demons we fight at the start? His Soul doesn’t give us much more information outside Demons being spawns of Chaos and being willing to do anything, especially for the Demon Prince.

I think his arena also should have closer resembled the Demon Ruins than it does. Perhaps it hearkens back to that in a slight way thanks to some of the architecture around, and the path to exit the area is a tunnel vaguely familiar to the DS3 Demon Ruins, but the boss area itself has no real significance other than it being big enough for the Demon Prince to fly around in. Is this where Lorian slew him?

What would’ve been really cool, and what might’ve added layers to both this boss fight as well as the Twin Princes boss fight, is if a younger, not-crippled Lorian was summon-able. A Lorian that stood proud on his own two feet with a unique weapon. While Gael’s presence here makes sense, it makes more sense as just a phantom pointing you in the direction of the entrance to the Ringed City than anything else. Summoning Lorian here would really cement this area as out of time and could excuse the presence of the Angels, since they’re trying to protect Lorian while he goes to confront the Demon Prince.

There’s no real indication that Lorian’s even been around here other than what the Hag says, about how there’s something in the pit that’s been crying out and it has something to do with Prince Lorian of Lothric. Her dialogue also made me totally think that we would indeed encounter the Furtive Pygmy, since she says something about the “pygmies” crying out for such a long time from down below. I suppose she just meant “pygmies” in a general sense.

I still like to play the boss fight. It was a good challenge and can be played in so many different ways. Solo, coop, taking out one before the other, it doesn’t matter. It offers a new experience a variety of times, and that’s kind of what I was hoping for out of this game.

The exit from the Dreg Heap area does indicate some elements of what is to come in the Ringed City, but I’ll get to that for that review.

The Dreg Heap area is about as good as the entirety of Ashes of Ariandel was and it’s only the first half of the DLC. It was a nice way to sort of wrap what we know of Dark Souls III before heading into a truly brand new area, the Ringed City, to throw a wrench in what we know of things and the lore of the world at large. Some things are head-tilting and the presence of the Angels is almost enough to make this unplayable at times, but the boss fight is fun and enemy encounters when you’re not taking on Angels at the same time are usually pretty fun. It’s a solid trip down memory lane while also throwing curveballs at you the entire time. I’m glad it’s part of a bigger DLC as a whole, and does serve to get you ready for the last bit of “Souls” content.

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