BOSSES: Arkham Origins

Jumping off the pages of the comics straight into your face!

    I've decided to dedicate an entire post to the bosses in Batman: Arkham Origins. This is the first game I've played besides Dark Souls II since I started this blog that actually has good boss battles. All the games for my B-LOG SLAYINGS posts (so far) have had small numbers of mediocre-to-forgettable battles, so they don't need their own posts. But, this game has a lot of battles, and most of them are quite good. I'll do a little rundown here, posting pictures and writing about each one. Let's do it, guys! (note: They'll basically be organized by order I fought them in) (hey, second note: some of the pictures (mainly Killer Croc) are not good. Sometimes it's tough to get good pictures while these assholes constantly move. Also, I don't have pics for Mad Hatter or Anarky, but you aren't missing much)

Killer Croc:

He does not have four arms

      This is the first battle of the game, and it happens roughly thirty minutes into the story mode. Before the fight, Croc and Bats exchange words about who smells worse (it's probably not who you'd expect, I'd say), and then the fight is on. I had a bit of difficulty with this guy too. It was probably me being rusty at Arkham games (although, we'll come to find out over on the B-LOG SLAYING post for this game, I think I just kinda suck at these games), since I hadn't played one in a couple years. At any rate, he's not very complex. He's a big goon, essentially, so you gotta give him the ol' cape-stun him followed with a nice beatdown. After this happens a few times (or once, I don't remember. I'm a very bad note taker. That's part of my charm though), he'll grab a gas canister and huck it at you. If it hits you, it explodes! Who woulda thunk it? Obviously, this is bad, and it hurts tremendously. After a bit more fighting, this happens: 

It's a helicopter. Note the flaming gas can

    You fight Croc on a rooftop, and as such, a helicopter comes by to drop off some thugs. Why the hell not, right? The battle is still the same, really. Beat up the thugs, keep an eye on Croc, and make sure you dodge the damn flaming gas cans he throws at you. Eventually, you'll beat him enough, and the battle ends. Then he gets arrested, and that's that.

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ELECTROCUTIONER:

How could this NOT have been a great fight?

    This guy is the first of a few "non-battles", and this one is the most disappointing. This had, "amazingly diverse, interesting battle" written all over it. They missed a great opportunity here. Anyway, Electrocutioner (fucking awesome name, too) looks menacing (with his shock-gloves and his humorous shit-talking), but this "battle" is one punch, and that's that. He even has a health bar and everything. But all he does is talk, and all you have to do is walk up to him and punch. He is knocked out, and you are told later you can trace him from the electricity his gloves give off. At this point, I figured I'd get an actual fight against this guy. Nope, he gets killed later on in the game. That's it. Oh well, you get his shock-gloves, and they rock the damn house 

See? Rocking the house

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Deathstroke:

This guy, and battle, are both badass

    This is easily the best battle in the game. I can safely say that. I love the way he looks, with that awesome black/orange mask and the one eye-hole. About halfway through the battle, you literally beat the mask off his face. He doesn't look nearly as awesome with his mask off because then he's basically just a dude with an eye patch.
    Deathstroke (Strokey?) uses some kind of martial arts pole, and boy, is he proficient with it! In fact, he's Batman's equal as far as fighting goes. This is a battle with two expert martial artists going at it with the full intention of beating the other into bloody submission. Because of this, the battle flows beautifully, and it is a great joy to just sit back and watch it unfold. If only you didn't have to hold the controller and dictate half of the battle.

He's a monster with that pole

    This battle features LOTS of countering, so you certainly have to be on your toes. Truly, all of the countering (of both you AND Deathstroke) looks magnificent, and it's almost like a ballet. This battle epitomizes what the Arkham games can do so well. As far as strategy, all you have to do is attack, dodge, and counter, and you can beat him down occasionally as well. Towards the end of the battle, Batman will break the pole, and Deathstroke takes out a Katana (I believe, anyway). It's more of the same though. Just pay attention, and victory will be yours!

Deathstroke DOESN'T like when you DON'T hit him

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ANARKY:

    This battle is super lame. Once you track down Anarky, all you do is fight him in a giant group of thugs. He looks cool, at least, with us baggy clothes, backpack, and his strange human face mask (not a mask made of an actual human face, unfortunately, but a mask that looks like a nondescript face). He also wields an electric stick, to fairly substandard results. Once you take out all the other thugs, you deliver a punch to his masked face, and BAM! fight over. I feel just a little cheated to not have a more proper one-on-one fight with Anarky. Maybe they thought that Anarky would be too under matched to face off against Bats. Whatever the reason, I was disappointed with this one. And, as stated above, I don't have any pics for this one (I think they were accidentally deleted actually).

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MAD HATTER:

    Okay, now THIS isn't even a boss battle. I'm still going to include it, because it's one of the Most Wanted side missions, and it features a prominent Batman villain. After you make it through the trippy Hatter area (reminiscent of the Scarecrow segments from Arkham Asylum a bit), you find him, holding a young woman, "Alice", hostage. All you have to do is throw a single reverse batarang so that it hits him in the back of the head. Easy as pie. I don't have a picture for this "battle" either (hell, it's barely even an, "encounter"), but you aren't missing anything. On a final note, as if to cement this as a "non-boss battle", it's the fact that Hatter doesn't even have a health bar. At least Anarky had his own health bar!

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COPPERHEAD:

Oh, should be easy!

  

    Before the battle, she injects you with some sort of mind-altering poison. Because of this, you're a bit sluggish for the battle. Also, you fight Copperhead and at least ten Copperhead copies. I assume this is a result of the poison she gave you. Only the real Copperhead will take damage to her health bar, but all of them can be attacked and beaten. Some of the copies (but not all) carry knives, so you have to juggle normal counters, knife counters, and you need to keep your head about you. My strategy was to just beat all of their asses, because I couldn't tell the real one from all the fakes. Not that it mattered much, because beating on them all was enough to deplete the real one's health bar. They all flip and slither around impressively, too. Overall, this battle isn't too hard. Don't get ganged up on, keep your head on a swivel, and time those counters well!

Eh...still easy...

Jeez, that's a lot of Copperheads!

BONUS PIC!

The accidental blurriness of this pic actually makes it cooler

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BANE (1ST BATTLE): 

I thought this was a perfect pic to sum up Bats and Bane's relationship

This one too

    This is a pretty good fight. It showcases (both in the fight itself, and in the cutscenes) just how brutally strong Bane is. This fight starts in an old, dusty library. I must say, great atmosphere in this place, and it looks great to fight in. Bane starts out in a trench coat, and you have to use your super cape-stun to apply a proper beat down on him. After a bit of back-and-forth fighting, he takes off the trench coat and showcases his trademark Venom tubes.

Bane...MAD! (that's how he talks, right?)

    

    He presses a button, and much like today's popular MLB athletes, gets himself juiced up to really fight. After some more fighting, you both go tumbling out of one of the large windows and land on a rooftop below. For whatever reason, I didn't get any pictures of the fight on the rooftop. Just know it's more of the same, except some thugs join in on the fun. Of course they do. When DON'T they? All you have to do is beat on the thugs, and dodge his running attack. When he's in his Venom state however, he is invulnerable. You can beat him down, and you then get a prompt for another combo that rips out one of his Venom-providing tubes from his body, thusly turning him back into normal ol' crazy Bane. Once his health gets low, a helicopter will fly in, a scene will play, and he'll hitch a ride with said 'copter. Until we meet again, dear Bane...

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DEADSHOT:

He looks like a snowy park ranger

    This battle is underwhelming, I'd say. It's essentially a predator encounter with Deadshot thrown in. You have to use all manner of stealth (lurking high up in the shadows, slinking through vents, stuff like that) to take out the armored thugs in the room with Deadshot. What makes Deadshot unique is his ability to shoot you from anywhere in the room. If he sees you, he can aim his gun and bounce his bullets off of walls and floors and. It's an interesting mechanic, and he uses it to intimidate the thugs around him as well. Once you take out all the thugs, you can jump down and beat the hell out of Deadshot. He barely puts up a fight in close range. See:

Pathetic

    You gotta be quick once you are toe-to-toe with him though, because he'll call in more goons shortly after you dispatch all the original ones. After Deadshot's health gets low, he'll take a hostage (a man that was tied up to a chair in the middle of the room) and threaten to kill him if Batman gets close. You have to sneak up to Deadshot and perform a takedown without being seen to finish the battle. Generally I thought the battle was boring (like I said, just a slightly beefed up predator encounter), but having to sneak up on Deadshot to take him out was pretty cool. It reminded me of the amazing Mr. Freeze fight from Arkham City. At any rate, I preferred Deadshot from that game too.

He stands!

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BLACK MASK:

Cell-shaded Batman?

    Maybe I shouldn't have said that the boss battles were a highlight of this game. While they are a few that are masterfully executed, I feel like so many I want to start with the phrase, "this fight was lame..." This fight with the "antagonist" of the main game is basically just a big group fight. Sionis (Black Mask) fights alongside a big group of thugs, including two martial arts guys and an armored thug, so at least there is some variety, and that makes the battle a little less boring. You need some crowd control but ultimately Sionis here is no different than any other run-of-the-mill chump you fight throughout the game. He isn't even wearing that awesome mask, which I consider to be the ONLY thing that makes him awesome. 

There he is, ready to box

Shouldn't he at least have a gun? At least he's got guts

    The strategy is to just whale on everyone, and eventually you'll take them all, Sionis included, down. For some odd reason, he does not have a health bar. Even Anarky has a health bar. Very strange.

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SHIVA:

"What're you lookin' at?" - framed portrait in the background

    Shiva, while fairly bland to look at, is an interesting character in the game.You have to do a few things to find and fight her, and her fight is a bit tricky. You first fight Shiva along with some female Shiva-esque ninjas with swords. Later on, you fight her with those martial artist guys. The first part of this battle has Shiva fighting like one of those martial artists (wherein you have to perform several counters in a row). When Shiva gets down to about half health, she pulls out a katana (I wanna say) and now you have to blade dodge her while still paying attention to those aggressive martial artists.

My trademark blurry pic

SWORDS!

    The battle can be a bit tricky because there are varying fighting styles used, and Shiva herself changes styles through the battle. Even so, not terribly difficult. I have no idea who Shiva is, though. I'm guessing from dialogue she might have a connection to Ra's Al Ghul. I made a note to research it, but really, I don't care enough. If you're here, reading this, you aren't reading it to gain an understanding and background info on semi-obscure Batman villain.

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BIRD:

Nice tat, bro

  

    This is Bane's lieutenantt. He's a normal looking thug-sort of guy, but he has some sort of...bird tattoo, I guess. On his face. His mouth/chin area specifically. He was the guy flying the helicopter that picked up Bane at the end of that first battle. Anyway, this battle is super easy. I can't even say I think there was a missed opportunity here, like I've said of a few others. This guy is just boring and generic, and as such, so is his battle. This is another, "fight a barely-recognizable-amidst-a-group-of-normal-thugs-boss" kind of battle. There are two Venom-raging guys as well, but they are barely a problem. This whole battle plays out very similarly to most of the other Most Wanted battles. If you pay attention, and stay on top of crowd control, you'll all be fine. The Venom guys add a slightly new wrinkle, but just barely. They are like toned down, tamer versions of Bane.

Oh yeah, some guys have knives too

The Venom thugs give off a lovely green glow

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FIREFLY:

 

He's just fireflying all over the place!

    Now this is what I'm talking about! I'll give the game credit here, because they left some of the best battles for the end. This is the penultimate boss battle for the storyline, and it's a damn good one. It's probably tied with Deathstroke as being the best in the game. After going through a burning, destroyed, dilapidated Pioneers Bridge, you find the culprit, Firefly. He looks AWESOME, with his pilot's helmet and those sweet jet-pack-wing things. Most of the battle, Firefly is flying around, far away from you, shooting huge amounts of fire down at you, courtesy of his flamethrower. You need to dodge these, and when you get a chance, quickfire the glue grenades. These will cause him to stop flying, and this gives you an opportunity to quickfire a bunch of batarangs at him. These only take off small slices of his health, though. Once you do glue grenade/batarang thing a few times he'll become disoriented, and you can quickfire the batclaw at him. You then have to reel him close to you, basically like a fish. Once he is close enough, you can give him a good pounding!

He really does look great

     After you beat him a few times after reeling him in, he'll fly off to a different part of the bridge. There's a very short section where you follow him, then it's back to the action. Now he'll throw several grenades which have to be dodged, and he'll shoot more direct fire at you. The battle is still the same though: dodge all the fiery bullshit (which can actually be kind of tough), glue grenade him, batarang him, batclaw him, and pound him! This is a great, nuanced battle. There's lots involved in it, and it takes place on a great-looking set-piece. There is a real sense of urgency to not only this battle, but the entire section. It's probably my favorite part of the whole main story. I said this battle is tied with Deathstroke, and it is. It's almost the exact opposite of that one: where Deathstroke is a calm, honorable opponent who matches your martial arts chops, Firefly is a crazy psychopath that cares for nothing other than fiery destruction. If only a couple more of the lesser battles had been as good as this (read: not just throw the boss in a group of thugs), this game could have had some of the better boss battles in any game I've played in years.

"Quick! Get the baking soda!"

I only saved this one 'cause it looks like he's ascending to heaven

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BANE (2ND BATTLE):

Such a BANE in the neck!

He's seeing green!

    After making your way through Blackgate Prison, and through several large rooms that are nothing more than gauntlets of dozens of enemies, we get to the end of the game, and a final showdown with Bane. This battle comes in two parts, and part one is pretty easy, yet a bit annoying. He'll charge at you, and you have to dodge out of the way. For whatever reason, I had a tough go of it trying to time my dodges perfectly. Once he charges around a bit, you'll be able to use the ultra cape stun, then administer a beatdown. A brief cut-scene of Bane picking up Batman and "breaking his back" occurs. After this, Batman powers up the shock gloves, and they can be used permanently. After this, surprise surprise, thugs join in on the fun. There's very few one-on-one battles in this game. That's pretty disappointing really. But, that's also besides the point. After the thugs came in, I still just focused on jumping all around the arena, trying to dodge Bane's charges. After a few beatdowns, Bane will be defeated, and, seemingly dead. You then have to restart Bane's heart with the shock gloves, in order for Batsy here to not break his one, sacred rule. You see, Joker rigged an electric chair that he sat himself on. It was rigged to Bane's heart rate: if it got too high, the chair would turn on, and fry Joker to death. To save Joker's life, Batman would have to kill Bane and stop his heart.

He's in a lot of BANE!

[add bad Bane pun here]

    So, Batman, being the swell guy he is, gets Bane's heart going again! Hoorah! Does Bats get a "thank you"? Maybe a handshake? Even a simple nod to indicate recognition of a life saved? Nope! Bane is (surprisingly) pissed, and he wants blood. He injects himself with, I assume, some stronger variant of the normal Venom he has flowing through him. Now, looking like a late 90's era Mark McGwire (author's note: I know I also made a steroidal Sammy Sosa reference in the B-LOG SLAYING post about this game, but come on! It's too easy not too) (second author's note: I just reread my first Bane post up there, and I made another steroid/MLB reference. I'm a bad man!), Bane's ready to rip Batman limb-from-limb. And so the second part of the battle starts!

MUTATED BANE (TN-1):

 
    This is the final fight. It's part-two of the above encounter, but it's so different, I decided I'd split this post up just a bit. After Bane injects himself with the TN-1, he mutates into a grotesque, cartoonishly large, version of himself. Batman smartly uses his explosive gel to blow a hole in the floor, and you both fall in. From here on out, it's a fairly standard predator encounter. You are in a narrow cell block replete with grates, vents, and electrified parts of the walls. You certainly can't take Ultra-Bane here mano-e-mano, so it's time for some sneaking!

Grrrr!

Fine, Frank Thomas maybe?

    Bane will stalk the hallways, and if he catches up to you, he'll smash you around good, doing pretty decent damage to your health bar. You have to hide in the vents or grates, or use smoke pellets, and sneak up on him, to get a, "silent takedown" prompt. Once you get this prompt, Batman jumps on Bane's back and essentially drives him like a huge truck. You can slam him into a normal wall, which does minimal damage to his own health bar, or you can steer him into those electrified areas. If you can drive him into these, he'll take initial damage from it, and you can also do a mini-beat down on him for more damage. After a few hits, he'll get up, and you gotta be on the run again.

Bane, stalking

    I appreciate the fact that this part of the battle is much different than the first two encounter, but it's still pretty easy. Just hide (detective vision helps tremendously), wait for him to have his back turned, sneak up, and press the prompt. About two-thirds of the way through the battle, someone wearing a jammer will appear, and you won't be able to use your detective vision until you take the jammer out. I'm not actually sure where the jammer is, because I was able to finish the battle without bothering trying to find it. After you deplete Bane's health, that's it. You string him up, and that's that. A pretty good final battle. It's no Deathstroke or Firefly, and it's not like the excellent Clayface battle at the end of Arkham City, but this is serviceable. In fact, this battle can be seen as a microcosm of the whole game: it's good, but not as good as the previous. It's serviceable.

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BONUS: THE JOKER:

    Real quick here. This isn't really a battle, but it's not a battle in the same way that Mad Hatter wasn't a battle. If that makes any sense. I was torn if I should take a few pictures, or if I should include this here at all. I decided to just briefly write about it. After beating Bane, you find Joker in the chapel. He wants you to kill him. He tries to force Batman to do it. He doesn't, of course. The, "battle", as it were, is just you performing a few beatdowns on the Joker. It's nothing special, but at least you get to beat the ever-loving hell out of him, and leave him as close to death's door as Batman will allow. 

   Welp, that's all folks! The bosses in this game are, for the most part, good. Some are lame, lazy, or downright just boring, but I think the ones that are good more than make up for it. It's nice to be able to fight all these different colorful characters, even if most of the battles boil down to, "fight X BOSS in this group of enemies". Oh well, at least we got Deathstroke and Firefly. It's just nice, personally, for me to play a game (other than Dark Souls II) currently that has some worthwhile boss battles. I hope you all have enjoyed reading, and if you think anything is wrong, worded incorrectly, or sounds like crap, hey, let me know! It's the only way I'll learn. 

B-LOG SLAYING: Batman: Arkham Origins (PS3)

Batman KA-POWS! a bunch of bad guys (again)

    Here we finally have a new B-LOG SLAYING post! Unfortunately for Arkham Origins, the three chapters of Dark Souls II DLC came out while I was playing it, and obviously anything Souls related takes precedence over everything else video game related. Arkham games and Souls games are at least slightly intertwined with me, because almost the exact thing happened with Arkham City. It came out right around the time Dark Souls came out, so Batman was pushed to the back burner. I wonder if Arkham Knight and Bloodborne will release concurrently?

Menacing

    Anyway, this post seems a little strange for me to write, because unlike the first three B-LOG SLAYING posts (Silent Hill: Downpour, Aliens: Infestation, and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy), this is a game that probably a lot of people have played, or at least heard of it. Sure, Silent Hill is a fairly well known brand, but I'm sure the number of people who have played--or at least heard of--it, compared to the number that have heard of or played the Arkham games, well it's gotta be like a 3:1 ratio*. So why should you land here, and read my thought about this well known game? Do you really have anything better to do? Yeah, I didn't think so. Without further adieu (and inane babbling from me), let's run through the cons and pros (note, bosses will have there own separate post. You can read it here):

CONS:

• There isn't enough new here. It's a lot of the same ol', same ol'. Which is fine for awhile, but I started to really get burnt out from the formula about halfway through
• Traversing the city is mighty annoying and tedious
• A minor annoyance, but there are some very lame, throwaway boss encounters (and missed opportunities, too)
• Finally, I'll also say that this game is not very hard. I mean, sure, I saw the "game over" screen more than enough times, but there's basically no penalty to dying/failing a mission. 

PROS:

• The whole game, from graphics, to voice acting, to story, are all very well done
• Most of the boss battles are great fun. They are highlights of the game
• The combat is still fluid. It flows beautifully, and it's still a sight to behold
• Lots to do besides main story mode

    My biggest complaint about the game stems from the fact that it just isn't different enough from Arkham City. The change from Arkham Asylum to Arkham City was big, and it made the resulting City game much better than its predecessor as a result. There was more to do and a much bigger world to explore. Everything was nicely tweaked and it made that game damn near perfect. The change from City to Arkham Origins is very subtle. It doesn't give you a brand new area to traverse (there are new areas, of course, but you're still in the same silent city you were in in the previous game), first of all. It throws in a few new enemy types, at least (I love those martial arts guys. Very fun to fight), but this still isn't a revolutionary change. You would expect new enemies in a new game. Riddler trophies are replaced with Riddler data packs to collect. They are still hidden behind traps. I found all of them in Arkham City. It was fun. It was also very frustrating. I wanted to find all those damn things. In this game, Origins, I really just didn't want to find all the data packs. Maybe I'm just too burnt out on the Arkham games in general, but all I wanted to do is get through the main story mode and see the credits. This is strange since I haven't played any of the games in about 2-3 years, so I shouldn't be burnt out. Make no mistake, this is definitely a good game. But for some reason, I'm very blah about it. Even when I think of other franchises that tend to play it safe with sequels, and I'll use God of War as an example, I don't find myself getting sick of them the way I have this game. Hell, God of War is probably more guilty of not changing the formula game-to-game than the Batman games are (come on though, God of War III is the one of the greatest games ever made. I won't accept, "no it isn't", as a response), yet I come back to GoW time and time again. Who knows? My fingers are crossed that Arkham Knight is not just Arkham Origins with next-gen (which is actually current gen. Weird how I still consider it "next-gen") graphics. Bring something NEW to the table, dammit! Is that enough italicisation for you for one paragraph?
    Getting around the city is, for the most part, a fairly large annoyance. Maybe I don't remember correctly, or maybe I'm looking at it through bat-shaped glasses, but I don't remember being annoyed traversing through Arkham City. Firstly, a new addition to the map is the Gotham Pioneers Bridge. This thing is a chore to get across, and you have to go back and forth over it (and do various things on/under/around it) probably 750 times throughout the game. You can unlock fast travel spots that your Batwing can bring you to, but I even find this mildly annoying to do. You have to go into the map menu, figure out where you wanna go, then watch a cut scene of Batman shooting a grapnel up to his flying automated ship, then watch a cut scene of it flying on an almost static background, until you get loaded back into the game. It almost takes as long as just repelling through the city. My game froze on one of these Batwing screens before, so I'm a little weary to always use them, which admittedly is kinda flimsy reasoning on my part (you came for the flimsy reasoning, and you stayed for the bad pictures, right?). Here's a good question though: why can't Batman hook onto EVERY GODDAMN ROOFTOP HE SEES? HE'S BATMAN! I realize the short answer is: it's a video game, and video games can't give you 100% total freedom. I understand that. But when I'm standing directly below a rooftop, and I can't hook onto it, even though I can hook onto one that's 800 feet away, that's very annoying. For all this game does to make you feel like Batman, this decidedly makes me feel like NOT-Batman.

This is the bridge...

    I won't spend much time on the boss fights, since they will have their own post, but some of the battles are just Lame, with that capital "L" for some serious emphasis. Mad Hatter barely even qualifies for a fight, and Electrocutioner is severely disappointing because it could have been so very cool (I would guess). When these games get bosses right, they are memorable, fun, interesting, and challenging (or at least tricky). Why couldn't the 'Cutioner be all of those? For shame! As far as Hatter, they could have given us a more appropriate battle. I mean, why the hell not? Also, battles like Anarky, Deadshot, and Black Mask are literally just fighting a big mob of enemies with a slightly tougher (or not, in the case of Anarky) enemy thrown in the mix. Luckily the good battles are great.
    Let's talk about the difficulty briefly. I know once you beat it, you can go through on a NG+ deal, where the enemies are harder and they don't give you the colored "counter" warnings. However, speaking of the main game first playthrough, it's not very hard. Sure, I've been either killed or had a mission failed plenty, but that's partly because I can afford to be careless. The worst that happens if you die is restarting at the last checkpoint, which was probably three minutes away. So, if you die, eh, oh well! You'll just get back there and do it again. Boss battles range from, "easy" to "mildly challenging". Nothing rage inducing. Maybe I shouldn't call the difficulty a con, because I don't plan on going through again on NG+. Does that make this whole argument null and void? Hmm, maybe. Just know, going in, your first playthrough will not be terribly challenging.

    Okay, I've torn this game up enough. Let's talk about why this game is still great fun, and a worthy addition to most gamers' libraries.

    I kind of rolled up graphics, story, and voice-acting into one singular pro. Firstly, the graphics are great. I mean, obviously they are, right? It's a late (then) current era game. I feel like talking about graphics for PS3 games is kind of pointless, unless they are stupendously awesome or horribly trashy. The city, thugs, villains, and Batman, all look great here, and better than the previous games. The voice acting too, while it doesn't have Kevin Conroy or Mark Hamill as Batman and the Joker (respectively), is still great. The new guys (Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker, again, respectively) are fabulous, and I don't personally really even notice that the same two voice actors weren't used. Joker, specifically, is played magnificently here. Everyone else is also good. No complaints there. Finally, the story, I think, is mostly great. Ignoring the problem of Batman's arsenal (this is a prequel to the first two games. When Batman acquires all the cool gadgets, gear, and upgrades in this game, they don't transfer over to the other games, obviously. It's strange from a story perspective that Batman wouldn't keep all this stuff with him. Maybe he lost it all?), the story is a great, engaging one. Black Mask has put a bounty on Batman's head, and eight masterful assassins have descended on Gotham to find and kill Batman, and claim that reward. I want to mention one part of the game, probably about three quarters in, that frankly, blew me away. So, be warned, spoilers ahead!

I'm Batman! Don't read spoilers!

    There's a segment where you are trying to get to the Joker in a penthouse high up in a building. This is where you fight Bane, and really meet the Joker for the first time. From the cut scene right before you fight Bane, until you finally take control of Batman again, it's absolutely stunning and gripping. Firstly, when you get up to the Joker, you get a cut scene of Bane quite literally just manhandling Batman like a damn rag doll. It shows Bane's brutal strength great. After that battle, Batman saves Joker's life from falling to his death. Joker then promptly gets arrested and is sent to Blackgate Prison. There, he gets analyzed by a very familiar looking psychologist (hint: it's Harley Quinn!). As Joker is telling the psychiatrist things, you get to play as Joker as you wander/fight through a nightmarish indoor amusement park. Part of this has you donning a red cape and a red helmet (sans eye- and mouth-holes). The whole thing is a great insight into the relationship of Batman and Joker, and it's a hell of a first meeting of the two (as far as the game's lore is concerned). It also showcases my favorite thing that plays between Batman and Joker: Batman can't kill anyone, even this deranged psychopath. Joker can kill everyone except Batman. I know it's an oft-treaded topic between these two, but this whole section is another satisfying part of that story to be added.

Taking control of the Joker is short-lived, but it's still great

End spoiler-y goodness here!

    This section was a true highlight of a story I enjoyed throughout. Definitely a strong suit for the game. Another section of the game, that comes right towards the end, I also thought was magnificent. Trying to apprehend Firefly (this isn't a spoiler. He's one of the eight assassins you see in that cut scene after the Killer Croc battle waaay back in the beginning of the game) on Gotham Pioneers Bridge was fun, varied (combat, predator encounters, hack/decoding, platforming/navigating through a twisted, destroyed bridge), and frankly, exhilarating. My favorite part of the whole game, I think.
    Again, I won't spend too much time on the bosses, but as I said above, when this game gets the boss fights right, they get them super duper right. Fights like Killer Croc, Copperhead, and Bane (the first time around) are interesting, and it's nice to beat these goons to a pulp. The highlights are clearly Deathstroke and Firefly. Those are two amazing looking, fun-as-hell battles! One of my favorite parts of all the Arkham games are the boss battles. Usually, across the trilogy so far, they get them right (that icky Sammy Sosa-looking Joker battle at the end of Asylum notwithstanding). I might have said it too many times, but these fights really are fun. Isn't that why we play games in the first place? To have fun? Here's to hoping Arkham Knight has more memorable boss battles. Maybe they'll even change the ways we look at boss battles. If there is one series that could revolutionize boss battles, it very well could be this one.
    Combat in these games has always been another delightful highlight. I could be a real pessimistic asshole and say the combat straddles being more of the, "same ol' same ol'" crap that I bemoaned above, but I won't. Because this Bat-glass is half full. The combat flows very fluidly, and it is a true sight to behold. Jumping into a gang of a dozen (or more) thugs and beating their asses, without taking damage, and really taking minimal effort, makes you feel like a Bat-god. It starts off simply enough, with only really one button commanding all of Batman's moves, but it has sneaky depth and complexity. Admittedly, I'm not that great at the game (another symptom of wanting to rush through to the end?). I hardly utilize the various specials and combos that I have available. I usually just forget how to do them. I believe you can turn screen prompts on to let you know when (and how) you can perform a certain move. Perhaps I should explore this more? At any rate, the combat is rewarding and fun (there's that word again!).
    Finally, besides the main story, there is a lot in-game for you to do. As mentioned, you can find the Riddler's data packs (they are still all puzzle-based, and some seem quite head-scratchingly irritating). Edward Nigma is part of a large set of side quests called Most Wanted. These are where you'll fight many of the bosses in the game. The whole goal is to apprehend these criminals at large. They are fun and diverse. There are nine total, and completing them all will certainly take some time. As you traverse Arkham City, you'll pick up crimes-in-progresses, where the police will ask for any available officer to a crime-scene. If you choose to pursue these, you'll end up at a large group of enemies to dispatch. I think this just nets you XP, but they are still a nice distraction. You can also analyze crime scenes throughout the game, and arrest the perpetrators of these crimes. While I appreciate the inclusion of the whole crime scene analyzing stuff (Batman is a detective, after all), it's nothing more than looking for highlighted objects in first person, then holding "X" while they are scanned. Even so, they are provide a little bit of deviation from the normal shenanigans of beating people senseless. Finally, and maybe I should devote more time to this (but I'm not going to), there are challenge maps (dedicated challenges to be completed with certain objectives or limits) that can be played outside of the main game. I haven't tried any of them yet, and unfortunately I don't plan to. If my backlog wasn't 90+ games long, I'd probably jump into them, because they were enjoyable in Arkham City. As it stands, I just don't have the time. Oh hey, there's also an online multiplayer mode that can be played. I've never played it; I don't plan to play it; I don't even know what it's all about exactly. So, with all that stuff mentioned, there's a hell of a lot to do with this game, if you have the time.

SO MUCH FUN!

    This game can be great fun, and you could certainly do worse, but this is definitely the worst of the trilogy. Now, "worst" doesn't mean "bad. On the contrary. I would suggest this to any fan of the first two. Hell, even for the newbies out there, this wouldn't be a bad place to start, if you haven't played an Arkham game yet. This game just doesn't differentiate itself enough from its amazing predecessor, and that lends to a feeling of retreading old ground. In the end, I'm glad I played it, and I'm sure eventually I'll come back and re-play it, or try to get 100%, or something like that.

Snow!

Smelter Demon (Iron King DLC variant)

What is this, Mortal Kombat?

     So, you've beaten Fume Knight, huh? Great job! And Sir Alonne? Ha, piece of cake, amiright? Well, what else is there to do with this fine DLC? What else is there to kill? What's that? You want a re-skin of a boss from the main game? Oh, you...DON'T want a re-skin of a boss from the main game? Oh, well, too fucking bad! Enter the (blue) Smelter Demon!

He just blue himself

    Okay, this post doesn't have to be very long, because this is almost 100% the exact same battle as the optional one from the Iron Keep. There are a few differences, however. First, his appearance. Obviously, he's blue instead of red. This reflects the fact that instead of being infused with fire, he's infused with magic. So in that case, he's not weak to magic like the original one is. His blue-ness extends to his horns, his sword, and the core of his body. He still stops twice to buff his sword, and by the final one, it's a giant Blue Flaming Weapon of Horrible Death. Admittedly, he looks very cool. Maybe even more so than the original. Secondly, his horns are a little bit different as compared to his red brother. The original version in the Iron Keep has horns that stick more out to the side. This blue guy has them that stick straight up. A minor difference, and nothing that changes any aspect of the battle. Finally, when he does stop to buff himself (by either charging his sword, or plunging it into his core), he will let off an AoE blast, similar to the one he uses with the sword-jump-plunge attack. This is pretty evil on From's part, because at least the first time you fight him and he goes to buff, your natural instinct will most likely be to get some free hits in. The AoE prevents this.
    Before we get into any other part of the battle, I would just love to talk about the path to the boss. I already did in my Iron King DLC overview, but I might as well complain about it here too. Apparently, this area was designed as a sort of "co-op" area. While I appreciate the thought of making an area specifically for jolly cooperative play, this area is not fun, even with other summons. It's just jam-packed with dozens of enemies. It's tough to get through it with everyone intact. It's difficult, but doable, to run through the area, but it is very tedious. The whole ordeal (Iron Passage, it's called) makes you not want to even bother fighting this boss. Just knowing you have to either run (and die) or fight (with still a good chance at dying) through this garbage is a soul-killer (no pun intended. LOL!). It's similar to Cave of the Dead, but that, somehow, wasn't as irritating. Iron Passage is a big reason that, as of this writing (currently September 15, on quite a chilly morning, I might add), I don't have him beaten yet. Every time I pick up the controller to play, visions of Iron Passage dance through my brain, and then I'm all like, "ugh". But, rest assured, by the time this goes live, he'll have been beaten!

He still has a puckered butt-hole face, at least

    As far as the fight itself, it's the same as the original one. Once you walk through the fog gate, Smelter is standing in the middle of a round room. After a second, he goes on the attack. Thankfully his attacks are much slower and more deliberate than both Fume Knight and Sir Alonne, so he's seems like he's fighting in molasses, by comparison. He has sword swings and slashes, along with an overhand smash. He'll jump in the air and slam his sword into the ground. Of course, when he does this, he'll let off his AoE attack if you are too close. This is an excellent time to heal, by the by. As stated, he still does two buffs, and by the final one, his sword becomes much harder to dodge, at least for me. It must be a mental thing with buffed-up, intimidating looking swords. If Smelter Demon didn't engulf his sword in (magic) fire, he would be simple to beat. His pre-buff attacks are all easy to roll from, and he leaves you ample time to retaliate or heal. I suppose that's why he has the buff. Otherwise, he's a pushover.
    There are two NPC summons you can use for this battle. Of course, they are at the very beginning of Iron Passage, so they would have to go through the gauntlet with you. It's the same two from the Sir Alonne fight: Drifter Swordsman Aidel and Steel-Willed Lorrie. Again, they both suck horribly anyway, so your best bet is to either summon human phantoms (all summon signs seem to be in the first room of the Iron Passage, with the NPC summons) or just go it alone. Even with summons, you all still have to fight through the Iron Passage. You could take the time to de-spawn all the enemies, but that seems like more trouble than it's worth.
    Admittedly, the five paragraphs above were written before I beat Smelter Demon. I finally did beat him yesterday, and I should talk a little about how that was accomplished. Take a guess. Go ahead!

    With NPC summons, of course! I'm basically incapable of beating bosses without help anymore. Six new bosses between the first two DLC chapters, and I had to summon help to defeat five of them (the exception being those idiots in Cave of the Dead). This is pretty disheartening for me. I mean, I've never been one of those, "look-down-my-nose-at-people-who-summon-help" kind of people, but generally I can solo most of these bosses. I don't want to make excuses, because the answer is just I'm not patient enough to learn the patterns and tells of these bosses. But really, after 30 solo attempts, isn't that e-fucking-nough solo attempts? Jeesh. But, as constant readers of this blog (I'm borrowing that phrase from Stephen King) will know, I'm trying the herculean task of going through my backlog. A side-effect of that is not getting a chance to fully explore, or 100% complete, some games. What that means for Dark Souls II DLC is, well, I need to have it finished a week or two after it comes out. I can't just stay stuck on a boss for weeks on end. The good news is that the final chapter of DLC, "Crown of the Ivory King", is supposed to be the hardest of them all. Including bosses, or so I've read. Yay.
    Anyway, I summoned both Lorrie and Aidel for this battle. It's tough to lead them through Iron Passage without them taking too much damage, but they generally follow you, if you just run straight through. And by my final half-dozen attempts, most of the pesky enemies had de-spawned. They both do pitifully small amounts of damage, but they provide help in two critical areas: they can tank like hell, and they usually take the focus off of you. Smelter usually focuses on the two of them instead of you, and this leaves you ample time to attack, heal, or buff. Also, they can absorb crazy amounts of damage. On my final attempt where I beat him, they both arrived in the boss area with full health, and they were both alive at the end. They do just enough damage to be worthwhile. I was doing about 305 with my Flame Weapon-ed Curved Dragon Greatsword (that damage output was doubled if I fought him solo). They were both doing between 80-95 damage.
    So, there you have it. I'm disappointed in From for giving us a boss re-skin, but I'm also disappointed in myself for not having the hutzpah to see this battle through. I know I can beat him on my own. I mean, I did solo the normal Smelter Demon on my first playthrough. Maybe I'm having such difficulty because I'm trying all these bosses, for the first time, on NG++. That certainly doesn't help. Oh well, at least I finally beat this DLC. Unfortunately, the final DLC got pushed back a week. Look for some boss posts for that in the first week of October, roughly. Otherwise, I'll have two Arkham Origins posts up tomorrow, most likely.

Sir Alonne

Leave me Alonne!

    This fight. This fight. THIIIIIS fight. TTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSFFFFFFFFFFFFFIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTT
    Sorry, but seriously, this fight. 

    I'm going to kill the anticipation on this one and throw it right out there: I died 58 times on this battle. 58. Fifty-eight. Do you guys know what it feels like to consistently be cut down, time and time again, by the same boss? With each defeat, you not only lose your humanity and souls, but a piece of your brain as well. It degrades your mental processes. It quickens aging. It deforms your very core. It makes bad seem good, black seem white, summer seem winter. It makes you babble near-incoherently to people that aren't really there, just hoping that these phantom strangers can help you ease the pain. It makes you question just why, exactly, you play this goddamn game in the first place. But of course you all know that feeling. You're Souls players, after all!
    The minor histrionics of the above paragraph aside, this battle was a personal hell for me. I'm sure we've all had them with Souls games. Maybe it was the Maneater battle from Demon's Souls? Perhaps it was Ornstein and Smough from Dark Souls? Could it have been Darklurker from this game? I've had a rough go of it with a lot of bosses in this series. Hell, even the boss that immediately proceeded this one took me more attempts than any other boss in the game thus far. But somehow, Fume Knight was different. Sir Alonne was a new level of frustration. And I wouldn't say it was due to anything other than my lack of skill, or more specifically, my lack of patience in trying to 100% learn his patterns, and learn from my own mistakes. This isn't a cheap, broken battle. On the contrary. Many people I've seen write that this is one of the best bosses in the game. I wouldn't necessarily argue. Okay, enough of me bitching though, let's get down to it.

     Once you enter the Memory of the Old Iron King, you have to fight through two small areas to get to the boss. I covered some of it in my DLC overview post, but I'll go into a little more detail here. The area isn't tough per say, but it's annoying to get through. I assume this memory takes place somewhere inside Brume tower, but I couldn't say where, or when. It is interesting that in the Old Iron King's memory you find Sir Alonne. Could there have been some sort of homosexual relationship going on between Alonne and the king? Ive read that posited on a forum I frequent. After all, what do you fight all through the Iron Keep? Alonne knights. Surely not a coincidence. Perhaps the king employs Alonne's knights just because they fight so well? (edit: I believe the king simply named his knights after the honorable Alonne. They all fight with his style, and they have a similar garb to him). I mean, how many knights roll up on you with katanas? At any rate, the first area of the memory is a large room full of huge pillars running down the left and right sides of it. There are five Alonne knights, along with a captain (with the lightning sword). These guys aren't too tough as I could take them out with three-or-four swings of my Curved Dragon Greatsword +5 (my new go-to weapon. It's fast for a greatsword, and it hits HARD. Not as hard as some of those huge hammers/clubs, but this is as big as I'm comfortable going with). There are also big window-like spots in the walls. There are three fire salamanders sitting in these, and when you get in front of them, they shoot three big fireballs at you. Annoying, but nothing that can't be avoided with little effort.
    The next area is a two-leveled area. The level you start on has a grate-like floor, so you can see below. There are stairs on the sides that allow you to go down. On the top floor, there are three knights with swords and two with bows and arrows. There's a red phantom captain here too. On the lower floor, there's another salamander, accompanied with two more knights, and another red phantom. I'm actually not 100% sure if he is a captain or a normal knight, but he has a bow and arrow. Honestly, I rarely went down to the bottom floor. Past the red phantom Alonne captain there is a corridor, and the boss gate is at the end of this. I died to Sir Alonne so many times that eventually, my entire path was completely clear of enemies, due to de-spawning. This was unbelievably helpful. I don't know if I would have had the willpower to fight through all that bullshit 59 times over. People ca say what they want about Dark Souls II, but I am a big fan of the de-spawning enemies mechanic.
    Once you walk through the fog gate, you find yourself inside a big, beautiful room. I suppose it's a cathedral-type room. It has large, open windows in the back, and the architecture itself is very ornately decorated. The floor reflects everything, so if nothing else, this really is a gorgeous boss room. Sir Alonne is sitting in the middle of the room when you enter. He then stands and readies his huge katana. He gives you a very slight nod of his head, implying this is an honorable fight (Alonne seems to be a man full of great honor). For whatever reason, he is invulnerable for these first few seconds. Fume Knight could be attacked while he appears and grabs his big sword. I wonder why Alonne can't?

I see this room in my nightmares now

     Sir Alonne wears some sort of samurai garb, and he uses a long katana. He's simple, but that's all he needs. While there's some good lore to be had here, and this fight can be very technical, it's disappointing to see yet another knight-with-a-sword-boss-battle. Essentially all three bosses in this DLC are this kind (Smelter isn't a knight, but close enough anyway). All three of the bosses need the same basic strategy to beat them too: well-timed rolls. That really is the name of the game with Alonne here. He slices with his sword, and you need to know when and how he's going to do so, so you can correctly time your dodges. Before I get too far into that, let's talk about his attacks. If you are far away from him, he'll do one of three attacks. He can slide at you (very quickly, I might add. That gap between you and him can be closed in a hurry) and either thrust his sword, or slice it upward. If he doesn't do these two, he can charge his sword up briefly and swing it, releasing a dark magic...blade, I guess. It's a very thin, long, crescent-shaped thing. When you are closer to him, he'll do a variety of normal slashing or thrusting attacks. He will also jump back fairly often, and this almost always means he's going to do that fast-sliding attack. Now, I don't literally mean he slides on his ass, of course (that would be fun), but he almost floats right to you. Reminds me of False King Allant, or, more recently, Pursuer. He can jump in the air and bring his blade smashing down in front of him also. Finally, he can charge his sword up with dark and thrust it forward at you. If you get caught with it, it impales you, dealing massive damage, and it buffs his attacks. This attack has the most RIDICULOUS AND BROKEN hitbox of anything I've seen in this game. In general, it seems, thrusting sword attacks are pretty wonky, but this one takes the cake. He telegraphs this attack by pulling his sword back, and you can see it swell with dark magic. There's plenty of time to roll to the side. But you CANNOT ROLL TOO EARLY. If you roll to his side before he starts thrusting, you're fucked. Even if you clearly are not in front of his sword, you'll get magically stuck to it, and the animation will play out normally. You have to wait until the last possible second, then roll away. I cannot tell you fine people how many times I rolled, successfully, out of the way of this attack, but because I did it too early, I got hit with it (and most likely killed).

Slashing upwards

Slashing diagonalwards

    As I said, timing is the key to this battle. It's especially difficult because he will do the same attacks with different speeds. It's mainly seen with his charging upwards slashing move. When he's far off, he'll telegraph the attack by pulling his sword back. Generally, as soon as he does this, I start the roll, because it takes him a split second to close the gap and be at you. If you roll right when he starts the sword pull back, you'll dodge the attack, and have a chance to attack him. Sometimes, however, he will pull the sword back but won't immediately come at you with it. He'll wait probably an extra half-second. That sounds like an extraordinarily small difference, but it might as well be five minutes. This would constantly throw off my timing. I would see him pull back, and I would roll forward, only to have him wait until my roll was finished before coming up and slashing me. Talk about frustrating. This was my single biggest problem with the battle. Usually, when things rely on timing, I'm screwed, because I'm monumentally bad at things like that.
    I tried this battle solo. I tried this battle with NPC summons (Drifter Swordsman Aidel and Steel-Willed Lorrie). I tried this battle with one human summon. I tried this battle with two human summons. I tried this battle with various consumables. I tried this battle with various buffs. I tried this battle almost every different way I could think of. I really did not exaggerate when I said above that this battle was my personal hell. Nothing in video games has frustrated me more (in the last couple of years at least) than this battle. It brought me to almost controller smashing levels of anger. I'm not an uncontrollable animal, so I never would smash a controller, but this battle brought me pretty close to that line. A note about consumables: I tried both Old Growth Balm and Brightbug. The Balm shortly increases your strength, and the Bug increases attack power and decreases the amount of damage you take. I found the Brightbug helped dramatically. My Curved Dragon Greatsword, with Flame Weapon buff, took off about 600 damage, but with the Brightbug, it was up to around 850, which was quite a nice difference. Also, the damage I received was considerably less, where I could take probably four to five hits, instead of only two or three. The Old Growth Balm only increased my damage output slightly. I would certainly suggest using the Brightbugs for a little added boost.

Uuuuuuuggggghhhh

    I don't know if there is a whole lot more to say about this battle. Overall, this is a great boss. He's got lore that directly ties into both this DLC and the main game, which is very cool. He looks good, although I'm still a little annoyed that he's just another sword-swinging humanoid boss. And, of course, I found him absolutely difficult. I don't know if this is the hardest boss in the game, but he took me the most attempts to defeat (if that makes sense. It really doesn't). I just don't think my play style is suited for him. Unfortunately I still have one boss to go in this DLC, and there's a mile of bullshit leading up to him. Hopefully I'll have him beaten before the final chapter of DLC is out at the end of the month. Until then, have a ball!

Times I died: 58
Difficulty: 9.8/10
Rating: 9/10

Crown Of The Old Iron King DLC

A tower full of RUTHLESS VICIOUSNESS

    I've never gotten a nostalgic feeling for my first playthrough of Demon's Souls during any part of either Dark Souls or the sequel. However, with the second DLC for Dark Souls II, "Crown of the Old Iron King", I kept coming back to Demon's. And it was an amazing feeling. Now, I realize this is mostly centralized to me, and I haven't read anywhere else that this DLC reminded anyone of Demon's, so don't go into it thinking you're diving back into the world of Boletaria. However, go into it thinking you're about to play an amazing piece of DLC that trumps the Sunken King chapter in every way (except for bosses, unfortunately). Let's explore!
    As with the Sunken King, once you purchase the DLC, download the patch for the game, and install the actual DLC, you'll receive a key to your inventory. It's called Heavy Iron Key. This DLC is accessed in a very similar fashion to the first chapter (go to the primal bonfire past the Old Iron King). You'll find a similar altar to the one found in the Shrine of Winter (with the tall, headless snakes), and this will transport you to the new area. You'll open a huge, ornate, iron door, go up a ladder, and you'll be outside, with the gigantic Tower of Brume standing off in the near-distance. You traverse a huge chain to get to it.

Beauty, thy name is Brume Tower

    The screenshot there is probably a variation on an image that always accompanies every preview/review of the DLC, and for good reason. I mean, just look at it! It looks pretty damn bitching! Or, to be slightly less vulgar, it's awe-inspiring. Once you get across the chain, you're on the outside of the tower. This was my least favorite part of the entire DLC. You're walking around on what looks like snow, but I think is probably ash. Enemies can pop right out of it, without warning, and attack, which is a nice, albeit slightly annoying, surprise. Before I continue, I'd like to discuss some of the new enemy types. Some are great, and some are really the same-old, same-old. The main enemies are skeletons, called Ashen Warriors. They come with various weaponry: dual axes, swords and shields, halberds, or bows and arrows. These guys are a fairly typical solider-type enemy, but they can hit pretty hard, especially those dual-axe wielders. Just don't get ganged up, and you'll be fine with them.

Another view

    My favorite new enemy is a set of possessed armor. Sounds kind of boring, but they are diverse and interesting. They float over the ground, and they hold both a flaming sword and a bow and arrow. The arm with the bow and arrow can completely disconnect from its body and shoot at you, independent from what the rest of the body does. His attack animation in general is of that very fluid, pretty looking kind. Reminds me somewhat of the grace of Flexile Sentry's scimitar attacks. Another new enemy are gigantic soldiers. They hit very hard, can jump at you (and close any gap nicely and unexpectedly), and hey, just for shits and giggles, they spew fire from their arms! There are some other enemies, like the crawling soldiers who jump at you (how do they do that without using their legs, anyway?). Bear with me here, but they seem to crawl in a similar fashion to the people that all crawl towards that altar during the cold open to the first episode of season three of Breaking Bad (the episode is "No Mas").
    I'm not devoting an entire blog to the enemies, so I'll give a quick rundown of the rest: there are Brume sorceresses that shoot painful lightning; red phantoms with notched whips; and weak hollowed enemies that carry explosive barrels. Also, in one area (more on it later), there are Alonne knights and captains, and those obnoxious fire salamander bastards. There may be others I'm forgetting, but that is the large majority. Finally, there is a non-traditional "enemy" called ashen idols. They are stationary, and don't do any direct damage to you. However, they can buff nearby enemies in a number of ways, whether it's healing them, making them unkillable, or assisting offensively (okay, so they can sort of do direct damage to you) with spells. They can only be killed by using a new item, called a Smelter Wedge. You have to walk up to them and hit "X" to use it. They leave pieces of Souls of Nadalia, Bride of Ash behind. I believe 12 can be collected to create a "full" soul for this Nadalia person. She is important to the lore of Brume Tower (and the Fume Knight I think), but I'm not too sure on it yet.
    Okay, boring enemy descriptions are over. I LOVED this DLC. I thought the Sunken King DLC was fabulous, and it was a great addition to the main game. I think this DLC is better in (almost) every conceivable way compared to the first chapter. If I was giving arbitrary ratings, I'd give Sunken King 8/10, and this one a strong 9/10. The environment is, at times, breathtaking, and other times, deeply nostalgic (for me, at least. More on that in a bit). This area, Brume Tower, even more so than Shulva, is all about going down. It's very vertical, and you are constantly striving to get to the next lower bit of the tower. The whole quest culminates with an INCREDIBLY difficult boss battle at the very bottom of said tower (hey, I have a post about it! Just read it here already!), and the way down is full of intrigue and extreme danger.
    Most of what you go through is corridors, ledges, giant open rooms, iron bars (think jail cell), fire, and traps. At one point, you get to the main hub of the tower. It's very inactive (as is most everything you find in the tower). There is an item you can find, called the Scorching Iron Scepter. This works as a sort of key, and once you use it back in that main hub, you essentially start the engine of the tower. It belches flames, and huge chains laboriously move elevators and lifts up and down. This part is particularly stellar because some of the elevators are nothing more than metal grates on top of huge statues (I think) of soldiers. Once you first use that scepter and get the lifts going, it's a sight to behold.

These giant statue/elevators are creepy

Once they get fired up

     The soldiers almost look like they are hanging, and it's a bit of a depressing sight. The whole operation certainly makes you feel small in comparison. Once you get these things moving, there are several new areas for you to explore. Eventually, you'll find a new area called Iron Passage. I'll briefly discuss it here. This place is very similar to Cave of the Dead from the Sunken King DLC. It's a straight-ahead area that leads right to a boss, and it's LINED with enemies. Apparently, this area and Cave of the Dead were designed as co-op areas, which is why both are very difficult. Iron Passage, specifically, is way more of a pain in the ass, compared to the Cave. You have to fight through three small areas, and each is packed to the brim with enemies. The first area has a few ashen soldiers, a lightning sorceress, and a powerful faith/miracle caster. This is the easiest part. Get through this, and the next bigger area has a few more soldiers, another miracle caster, and two of those possessed armors (one is a red phantom, no less). Finally, after this area, you get to a large, open area, with the boss gate at the other end. You have to deal with at least one possessed armor soldier, two casters (one red), and two of those giant soldiers (one red). I generally just run through all this bullshit as quickly and carefully as possible. It is not worth my time to try and fight through all this muck. It's probably a 70/30 ratio of me running through to the boss and me getting killed on my run to the boss. And what kind of boss do you get for surviving this hellish area? Oh, a re-skin of a boss from the main game (more on him in his own post). Blah.

Beginning of the Iron Passage. Looks great, at least

    There's another optional area that ends with an optional boss (a much better one than at the end of the Iron Passage). At one point, as you ride those elevators, you'll find a small room with a set of samurai-looking armor on a stand, and a long katana sitting on the floor under it. If you have the Crown of the Old Iron King, and the ashen mist heart, you can enter a new memory (remember those Giant memories?), the Memory of the Old Iron King. This is a small area teaming with those Alonne knights and captains (and those annoying fire salamanders), from the Iron Keep. There's a very good reason for that, considering the boss of the area. Spoiler alert: it's Sir Alonne. This area is a bit tough, but it's far easier than Iron Passage.
    Interjected story time! After receiving the titular crown after beating Fume Knight, I excitedly made my way to the bonfire right outside where that set of armor is. I walked up to it, ready to take on a new area, and...nothing. I didn't have the ashen mist heart. What did that then mean? Oh, nothing much. Just had to: run through Drangleic Castle and beat the dual Dragonriders and Looking Glass Knight; run through Shrine of Amana and beat Demon of Song; run through Undead Crypt and kill Velstadt; run through Aldia's Keep and kill the Guardian Dragon; and finally, run through the Dragon Aerie to get to the Ancient Dragon, so he could give me that goddamn ashen mist heart. Suffice to say, I was quite annoyed to have to do all this. It only took me an extra few hours, but trying to just rush through an area in a game like Dark Souls II is not smart (speedrunners notwithstanding), and it probably leads to extra time being taken because you're being careless. I will say though, for the first time ever, twice in a row Looking Glass Knight summoned an actual human player during his fight. Yeah, not fun.
    Okay, enemies and optional areas are done. I'd love to talk about the look and feel of this DLC now. Remember when I mentioned the nostalgia about Demon's Souls? This DLC really hit me right in the feels (as the kids are wont to say nowadays. By the way, I am not a miserly 50 year old). There's a section that's full of barrels, hollows carrying barrels, and fire shooting out around. This really reminded me of 2-2 StoneFang Tunnel, with those hollows bearing a resemblance to the normal StoneFang workers. Also, large parts of the tower sections reminded me of 3-1 Tower of Latria. There were several times throughout where I just stopped for a second, because I was overcome with a beautiful sense of deaj-vu. I'm not sure exactly why, but just the whole aesthetics of it has a throwback feel (and it taking place in a large tower certainly helps). It made me really want to play that game, and I'm thinking of starting a new character in it soon. Beyond the vague Demon's Souls feeling, I preferred the look of Brume Tower over Shulva. It's more colorful (compared to that overall drab, bluish color of the sunken city), it's got outdoor sections (which I think I prefer in Souls games over indoor sections), overall it's just more interesting, what with all the fire, elevators, the traps and inventive ways you can go about various sections. I've actually seen the DLC likened to the Arkham Batman games, in that you can analyze certain areas before you enter, and you can pick a strategy specifically for said area. I'll also say, arrows are a big help throughout this DLC. I've never gone through so many arrows in any area of ANY Souls game before. I bet I've used 500-600 just in the DLC alone. So hopefully you have a decent bow!
    I think I've talked about everything I wanted to, except for maybe the most crucial aspect: this DLC is hard as hell. In general, Dark Souls II was pretty tough, and the "Sunken King" DLC was hard, but this DLC is nasty in every sense of the word. It has brutally difficult bosses (maybe the single toughest one in the entire game?), very tough areas filled with mobs of enemies, and even very hard NPC invading phantoms (Maldron the Assassin being tougher than Jester Thomas even. Plus FIVE red phantoms invading at once!). Generally the challenge was welcome, and I was able to overcome everything the game threw at me. I will say, either my skills are deteriorating, or I'm just not as good at this game as I once thought. These goddam bosses are eating my lunch. I've already put up my Fume Knight post and how difficult I found him. Without spoiling my own future posts, I'm stuck on both Sir Alonne and re-skinned Smelter Demon. It's very frustrating, because the DLC has been out for two weeks I think, and I just want to finish it. As much as I LOVE these games, I have other stuff to play. I actually came to this revelation during my runthrough of the main game, trying to get the ashen mist heart. I never proclaimed to be an amazing Souls players (even the platinum trophies for Demon's Souls and Dark Souls II, while difficult to obtain, were not something unachievable for me, like say the platinum trophy for a game like, Max Payne 3, for instance), but I figured I could at least beat every boss solo. I on;y beat one of three solo on the first DLC, and it's looking like a smiliar ratio for this one. Oh well, I guess it's not something to get that worked up about, right? I really think Homer said it best, "No matter how good you are at something, there's always about a million people better than you."
    I'm gonna wrap this up on a more lighthearted note. Firstly, yes, this DLC is amazing, and I would strongly suggest it to fans of the regular game and the first DLC. Boring (or, lazy) boss design aside (more knights with swords!), everything else is a pure pleasure. I haven't touched on it much, but this one is much more lore heavy than the first chapter. Lore hounds should eat it up. But what's really the best thing about this Iron King chapter? This:

No caption needed

    It's the Smelter Hammer, and I got it from a drop from one of those huge knights. I bring it to attention because, well, just look at how gigantic it is! It has to be the most ludicrously large weapon in Souls history. Also, it takes a staggering 70 (!!) strength to wield, and that's definitely the most strength you need for any one weapon.
    Finally, I'd like to add that I haven't 100% finished the DLC yet (still have the two aforementioned bosses), so I may come back here and update with one final paragraph, once I beat them, if I deem it necessary. Otherwise, thanks for reading, and check back soon (hopefully) for those two boss posts. I know I've said it in the last like three or four posts, but I really will have some Batman: Arkham Origins posts up pretty soon. Most likely

Fun note: I used the acronym "DLC" 27 times in this post (counting this one, and the one in the title).