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).

Fume Knight

I prefer his brother

    Okay ladies and gents, let's just jump right into this. I'm pretty sure I have a lot to expound on about this asshole. You all seated and ready? Good.
    After making your way down and through Brume Tower (an absolutely stunning, amazingly fun, mega frustrating, Demon's Souls-y area), you reach the bottom. The bonfire is called Lowermost Floor. It's a large circular room (with a small room off of it. This is where the bonfire is), filled with the familiar ash you've seen so much of so far in this second DLC. There's two of those giant warrior that pop out from under the ash here, but they don't have to be bothered with. When you first walk into the room, the boss fog gate is straight ahead, with the bonfire to the right a ways. There's a large thing (I've read that it's a giant corpse you fight the boss in. I never noticed, but that's pretty damn awesome. You can read the small thread on gamefaqs about it here) in the middle of the room (where the fog gate is), and surrounding it are four of those ashen idols. Before fighting the boss, you don't know what they would do to aid him, but it's made pretty apparent that if you leave them, they will help the boss in some fashion, considering all four are butted right up against his room. Hopefully you have enough Smelter Wedges to take care of them (amazingly, I did). So, with idols vanquished, you walk up to the fog gate, and--sigh--you step inside.

And with any luck, you'll get a message rated

    This is what the room looks like when you first step in. The boss doesn't appear immediately, which is great. It gives you time to use a buff on your weapon (avoid fire, bleeding, and poison. They are useless. Magic or lightning is the way to go). I wonder if that sword has anything to do with whatever might be in this room? Let's walk towards it, shall we?

Oh, it does. Who knew?

    When you get about halfway to the sword, black mist swirls around it, and a large knight appears to grab it from the ground. He thrusts it high, the name "Fume Knight" appears at the bottom of the screen, and then the fight is on, and you're in for a royally fucking tough battle.
    First, briefly, his appearance. It's kind of a bummer to see another knight-holding-a-sword boss, but this one is better than maybe all the other ones before him. He's totally clad in armor, and none of his skin is visible. He's got a tattered skirt (?) kind of thing, and he's a very bland, bluish-grayish kind of color. Finally, he wields a smaller, normal sword in his right hand (just a normal longsword maybe), and a ridiculous greatsword in his left. The sword he takes from the ground, duh.
    Okay, down to the nitty-gritty. Almost ALL of his attacks are just sword swipes, so the name of this game is dodging. The timing is a little wonky at first, but the more you fight, the more you get his pattern. This fight has two parts, and I'll start, logically, with the first. He swings both the small sword and the great sword in a number of different ways. He'll swing the small sword anywhere between one and three times (the three combo ends in a thrust), and sometimes this is followed by a sweeping attack with the greatsword, but not always. He will also occasionally rush at you from afar and try to pierce you with a thrusting attack. Finally, he'll swing the greatsword overhead or sweep it in front of him. Note that he'll sometimes use either sword to do a little half-sweep at his side if you stay too close to him. Secondary note: you absolutely can take damage on the back swing of his greatsword. Just keep that in mind.
    He takes a few tries to get his first-half pattern down (it did for me, at least). Soon though, you realize he's not too bad. Don't even try to use a shield to block any of his attacks though. It's a waste of time. He'll cut your stamina down (especially with that greatsword) to nothing, and he'll combo you to death. Generally, I would roll backwards away from the small sword swipes, then roll under his greatsword sweeps, and to the side of his overhand slams. It's a little scary at fist rolling into this greatsword hand, but that's the easiest way to avoid its attacks. A thing about that greatsword: it has a crazy long reach. It's deceptively long. I couldn't even count the amount of times I thought I rolled out of the way enough, only to take damage anyway. It's very frustrating. You think you're far enough away, but you're not. Also, whenever he either hits you, or the ground (in the case of his overhand swing), his greatsword glows orange for a period, before going back to normal. I don't think this does anything other than to intimidate and foreshadow the second phase of the battle...

You know what they say about knights with big swords, right?

    When his health gets down to roughly half, he starts the second phase of the battle. He'll put his smaller sword away, and raise the greatsword up high. It then catches fire, and stays on fire for the remainder of the battle. It's not just fire though, I wanna say it's dark-fire, because it's tinged black (and I guess the Gyrm Greatshield doesn't negate the damage from the flame sword). Admittedly, it looks awesome.
    Okay, once the sword is fired up, he has some new moves. He'll still slash and thrust with the sword, but he also has two new attacks. The first is a looooooong swipe with it, from his right to his left. The range on this is INCREDIBLY, IMPOSSIBLY LONG! If you thought the range on his greatsword normally was bullshit, well you might as well put the controller down. However, this attack is actually quite easy to dodge. You need to be patience, because the timing really is key, but once he starts bringing the sword from his side to the front, just roll towards it, to his sword hand. You'll take no damage, and have a nice opening to get a hit or two off. His other new attack is an AoE deal where he sticks the sword in the ground for a short moment, then black fire explodes from it. Obviously staying far away is how to dodge it, but even then, it releases swirling fireballs. It's unexpected at first, but all you have to do is roll between them, and it's pretty easy to dodge them.
    Once I got down the patterns he used for the first part of the battle (the non-fire portion), I actually found it pretty easy. I would still get killed occasionally from dumb mistakes, but mostly I could get him down to that half health line. If this was the whole battle, I would have been able to beat him in a dozen or so attempts. Every time he set that sword on fire, something inside my brain broke. It was probably the chains holding my fear in place. Once that fire came, I was intimidated beyond all get-out. Essentially, his attacks are about the same as before he has the fire sword, but for whatever reason I just could not consistently dodge them. In all my attempts (including the times I died as a phantom helping other people), probably 75% of the deaths came because I got cut down by that goddamn fire sword. Maybe the timing is just a little different compared to the greatsword, pre-fire. At any rate, once he buffed himself, the countdown was on. The countdown for me to get killed and uber-frustrated that is (do the kids still use uber? Remember THAT phase? It wasn't very phat at all...).
    How did I beat him? Take a goddamn guess. Yeah, I had to summon help. Even with summon help, it still took about a baker's dozen tries, or more. I will say, he has a gigantic amount of health normally, and this is increased when phantoms are present. I wouldn't go into this battle with more than one phantom, because than his health is just absurdly high, and this makes it monumentally more difficult. You can again summon the ever-resilient Steelheart Ellie (who is basically useless. Who knew?). Carhillion of the Fold is also available to summon, but I didn't use him, so I'm not sure how helpful he is, although I hear he isn't very, considering Fume Knight has a high resistance to magic spells. Eventually, I beat him with another human phantom. I was at the boiling point of violent frustration, too. I sent the person who helped me a thank you message. If I could have, I would have sent them some nudes or something. Errr, um, anyway, enjoy a picture:

No, not a nude pic! Just a pre-getting-run-through pic!

    I'm gonna jump into the tiniest bit of spoiler-y lore right now, so if that will offend your sensibilities, look away now!

don'tlookdon'tlookdon'tlookdon'tlookdon'tlook

    This is actually Raime, one half of Vendrick's dual-advisers team, as it were. The other half, of course, was Velstadt. This is pretty interesting, here. What's even more interesting is that if you enter his room wearing Velstadt's helmet, he instantly buffs his sword with fire, instead of waiting until his health is drained to the 50%-60% mark. This provides some insight as to exactly how vile the relationship between Raime and Velstadt must have become.

don'tlookdon'tlookdon'tlookdon'tlookdon'tlook

    Okay, spoiler stuff done. I think this whole post is just about done. I'll try to wrap things up with a classic summary. This was one of the most difficult bosses in all of Dark Souls II, and hell, probably in the whole series. As you'll see from my death count, I died WAAAAAY more on him than on any other boss in the game. Despite him being another knight boss, I ultimately think he's a great boss to the series. He looks cool, has a great back story, and is extremely difficult. Anyone that can beat this guy solo, well, I tip my hat to you and offer you this virtual handshake. I should have the overview post on the DLC up soon, followed by the other two boss posts. In a perfect world, all three of those posts would be up by Friday, but that's just not a possibility. Anyway, thanks for reading!


Times I died: 46 (!!)
Difficulty: 9.7/10
Rating: 9/10

BOOKS: Fantastic Voyage

Marvel at the wonders of the human body!

Fantastic Voyage, Isaac Asimov

    Isaac Asimov, as I've mentioned, was (and is still looked at as) one of the big three of sci-fi writers of his day. He's written myriad classic sci-fi books. And in 1966, he wrote a novelization to the movie, Fantastic Voyage. I generally look at movie novelizations as lame cash grabs. Is that unfair, though? Besides this one, I've never read one before, so perhaps I'm wrong. At any rate, this particular novelization was written by a very good, respected author, not Johnny Poor-Pants (...or, something). I picked this book up on a whim, because, I believe, it was stupid cheap at a closing book store (less than a dollar, I wanna say). Very low price, an interesting (albeit sort of silly) concept, and a good author all combined to make me say, "eh, why the hell not. I'll give it a whirl." And a whirl it was given.

Definitely a cool cover

    Overall, I enjoyed this book. It has a similar tone to Dolphin Island, in that both are short, fun adventure novels. Although the stakes in Fantastic Voyage are quite a bit higher than in Dolphin Island, where in Voyage it's basically the difference between winning and losing, "the war". Who are the protagonists warring with? Well, Them, Over There, of course! No enemy is ever mentioned. In fact, where the protagonists are situated is never said either (just, Here). I've read that this is clearly meant to be a Cold War, US vs USSR kind-of-thing, and honestly, that was my first thought when they start mentioning vague enemies in a vague war. At any rate, the basic plot of the novel goes like this: a brilliant scientist has defected from Them to Us, and he holds information that could win the war for either side. As he's being brought to the HQ, an attempt is made on his life. He survives, barely. He has a blood clot in his brain, and it can't be operated on from the outside. Well, what's a government to do? Why, they plan a fantastic voyage, of course!
    As I'm sure everyone knows, from just hearing the title Fantastic Voyage, this is the story of men and women who are shrunk down to bacteria-size (actually, maybe a bit smaller than bacteria?) and are injected into the bloodstream of a living man!This is pure sci-fi goodness, here. Apparently, even Asimov realized the silliness of it all, but I have a feeling he had fun writing the book anyway. Curiously, he wrote a sequel (twenty-something years later, to boot) called Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain. I don't know if I'll ever read that book, but hell, I never thought I'd bother reading this one, so I'm sure at some point I will.
    Since I'm such a pessimist, I'm going to go over, briefly, my main problems with the book. There aren't many, and in fact, I think there is only one. Asimov clearly knows what he's talking about when it comes to the human body. He's very descriptive, and goes into some decent detail about the way the inside of veins, capillaries, lungs, and other bodily-inside-things look. That's all well and good, but for me, Mr. Average Joe Idiot, I had a very hard time visualizing these things in my head. Sure, I can picture well enough a tiny submarine floating down a vein, but corpuscles, arterio-venous fistula, pleura, reticular fibers, and all other manner of biology mumbo-jumbo? I don't want to call them all abstract concepts, because they have definite forms, and scientists can see and study them (so they aren't abstract in the way that all the crazy shit the Ocean from the Solaris novel spewed was abstract), but to my mind, that's the best word. My mental pictures of certain scenes suffered for it. Again, it's probably my problem, and other people can just picture it easily. That's why I sometimes think I'm the least qualified person to read, and subsequently talk about, sci-fi. But I genuinely enjoy it, and I really like the way it gets my mind to think about things (when I can think about things, anyway). But hey, on the bright side, maybe you'll actually learn a few things from the human body as you read this book!

THE MOST INCREDIBLE ADVENTURE NOVEL OF OUR TIME! (if you haven't heard)

    Finally, since I brought it up with Orphans of the Sky by Heinlein, I decided to be on the lookout for bullshit 60's sci-fi sexism. I'm happy to report that while, yes, there is a little bit of it, it certainly doesn't reach Orphans levels of awfulness. I'm not trying to champion any causes here, I just think it's very interesting (and abhorring) how these male authors (and, unfortunately, the male world at large) saw women back in that time. But, there is a woman on the five-person team that gets miniaturized, and it's clear she's very smart, but she gets a good amount of grief from one character (his name is Michaels, for future reference), because she is a female. The other three don't really care. And, I suppose, by the end, there might be a reason why Michaels (hey, future reference!) is a sexist pig towards her. 

    Okay, enough bad stuff. This was a pretty good book. I know sci-fi writing can be seen as cold, sterile, and its not always known for developing characters (characters are pushed aside for story. I'm usually okay with this), but Asimov here differs from those labels. Maybe the characters aren't as fleshed out as in other books, but Asimov is a great writer, and his narrative is easy and casual. Like I said, it was actually fun to read. I'm not sure this counts as, "hard sci-fi", as it were, but that's more than okay with me. 

    The story is good, and it always keeps you interested and on your toes. There's lots of action (including harrowing scenes of: gathering oxygen from the lungs, traversing through the ear, and the final escape from the body, to name three). Besides the action inside the body, there's also a mini-mystery about a potential spy or traitor on the submarine. Also, I'd like to document my enjoyment of the scenes describing white blood cells and antibodies destroying foreign objects. In one chapter (chapter 14, "Lymphatic") the crew witnesses a battle between antibodies and bacteria, and one character (Cora. Okay, sometimes the way she reacts to certain things could be construed as sexist) is horrified to see the antibodies quite literally just squeeze the bacteria to death. Also, one scene at the end shows how terrifying a white blood cell would be to something smaller than it. These parts were some of my favorites, and they gave a sense of the unknown. Asimov isn't writing about space here, but he might as well be, considering how alien everything looks and acts in the human body.

    I think that about wraps it up, ladies and germs (pun definitely intended). This was a fast read (you quick readers could probably breeze through in a couple days. Hell, probably even one!) at only 186 pages. It had good action, an interesting idea, characters that I enjoyed reading about (mostly), and it's very well written. Confusing body part descriptions aside, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the book. I will say, I was never in much doubt about how the book was to end. I've never seen the movie for which the book was based (off of the screenplay, actually), but I had a very hard time believing the crew wouldn't get the job done, one way or another. I don't really consider that a spoiler, because I never thought otherwise during my read. That's a negative too, but it isn't like a mystery novel or anything, so it isn't a huge deal. Besides, all the talk about spies had me guessing until the end (was there one? Wasn't there one? Read to find out!). I'm not sure what I'm going to read next, but it'll probably be more sci-fi. I'm probably only going to have time to read one book in the next few weeks, because I want to focus more time on working on this blog, and gaming. Thanks for reading, everyone! Now, go pick up an actual book by an actual author, won't you?

I would suggest this book to any sci-fi fan, or any fan of short adventure novels. Just keep a medical dictionary near by!

Spines by Epson

BOOKS: Mr. Mercedes

I want my mother!

Mr. Mercedes, Stephen King

 

    Stephen King is an author I hold near-and-dear to my heart. He was the first, "adult" author, I ever read. Goosebumps and Choose Your Own Adventure were fine for a while, but eventually I needed something more. Oddly enough, the first King book I ever got was On Writing, which is a half-memoir/half-writing tips. I was aware of who Stephen King was at this point (I was probably thirteen at the time), but I didn't know very much about him. After reading through, and enjoying On Writing (so many swears! My thirteen-year-old self was at first shocked, then absolutely delighted), I decided it was time for some big boys. My first real novel by King was The Shining. Suffice to say, I was blown away. That hooked me on reading (and specifically, reading his novels). After The Shining, I read It, and from there, I don't really remember the order. I've read at least thirty of his books by now, just a few months away from my 27th birthday. What in the world does this rambling have to do with this book I recently finished? Absolutely nothing, besides to illustrate how much King means to me. He (via his On Writing book) influenced me to start taking writing seriously (which I still do, BARELY), and he really gave me a huge love/appreciation for horror. I've been reading a lot of sci-fi lately, but I can always come back to King.

This book has a great, disturbing dust jacket

    This is Mr. King's most recent fare (as of 8/16/14), and I got it for free, as a matter of fact. A local record shop near me, Bullmoose Music, moved their store and had a grand re-opening. I won a free book voucher, and I grabbed this. This is classic King, yet it's also somewhat of a departure. I know he's been pigeonholed as a "horror writer", but he's written many things that don't come close to that. This book has no traces of horror, supernatural, sci-fi, anything like that. It's essentially a crime story, and even then it has some cliche parts to it. It's got a disgustingly maladjusted killer with mommy issues; an ex-cop contemplating suicide; killer sending taunting letters to people. However, I enjoy the way King writes and narrates, and I wasn't too bothered by that stuff.
    There's a potentially much larger issue with the book, one that I had read beforehand on a Goodreads review, so I tried to keep conscious of it throughout. Without spoiling much, essentially the main character (retired detective Bill Hodges) withholds large amounts of evidence from his old police buddy, and in turn goes after the killer himself (with a misfit crew towards the end). The review I read stated that this was a book-breaking piece of information. If Hodges had just given his information straight to the cops, the reviewer posits, the killer would have been apprehended before other tragic events in the book take place. Does that make sense? I was aware of this piece of information, but it didn't bother me that much. Hodges has just enough justification to keep the police out of his private, and illegal, investigation, as far as I'm concerned.
    Okay, besides the cliche cop stuff, and the "withholding vital information" bit, the final thing that slightly bugged me about this book is the antagonist, the titular, "Mr. Mercedes". His name is Brady (that's hardly a spoiler, it says that right on the inside flap), and he's as vile a villain as King has ever come up with. Besides the fact that he murders several people in the book, he comes off as very unlikeable. Obviously, right, I mean, he is the bad guy? But he has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He's a psychopath, through and through. And a damn racist one, at that. Any prospective readers, let me tell you now, if you are offended by the, "n-word" (or other vulgar racist slang), I would not read this book. Maybe not liking the antagonist of a book is a silly qualm to have, but King has made better villains. Brady works as a horrible killer, and nothing more.

Back cover. Creepy as all get-out

    Overall, I enjoyed my time with this book. Perhaps I mis-spoke (mis-typed?) above when I said this was, "classic King". What I meant was, I could tell this was a Stephen King book. Despite the fact that there is almost no violence/gore -- I love the way King talks about, and describes, gore. He's very good at it -- whatsoever (except the very first chapter, the middle, and one scene towards the end), King's casual narrative and great dialogue are still here. There's no horror aspects, as stated, but it's still right in King's ballpark. I'm a bit of a King honk, so I can enjoy his works that others don't like (Tommyknockers still sucks though), so take my opinions for what they are. Most of the characters are likable and unique, the whole story moves fast, there's some action, and a bit of mystery. I don't know how much of this book I'll remember in six months or a year, but there was one chapter that I remember thinking, I cannot wait for this chapter to be over. I don't want to read this anymore. Despite how it sounds, that's actually a compliment. It was just such a disturbing account of a broken family with mental health issues, and how those issues were ultimately dealt with, that was heartbreaking and fairly sickening. This chapter will stay with me for a while, at least.
    I have read a fare amount of King's new material since 2011: besides this, I very recently read Joyland (his second Hard Case Crime novel, and the amusement park in the book was inspired by an amusement park that is five minutes down the road from my work!), which I thought was fabulous, and I read 11/22/63 a few years back, and that was a great read as well. This book is probably my least favorite of his newer books (have yet to read Wind Through the Keyhole or Doctor Sleep), but I would still recommend it to King fans, and I guess to crime fans as well. I'm not sure where else to put this, but there is a fair amount (okay, more than fair) of computer-related stuff in this book (private chat sites, voice-controls for computers, hidden files, computer whiz-kids, etc.), and maybe it's just me, but I always find it weird when Uncle Stevie talks technology. Like, it sorta comes off to me like he is too old to be talking about computers and video games and the like. I know that obviously isn't true, but for whatever reason, it's like my mom trying to tell me about technology.
     I feel this is my most disjointed, rambling book post yet. I'm sorry for that, and if it comes off as even more amateur-ish than my other posts, well, whaddya gonna do? I'm still trying to find my footing with this blog writing. I'm stupidly self-conscious about these, and I constantly think to myself, "man, no one will want to read these, or if they do, they won't take them seriously". It's pretty dumb, because I'm not trying to be a professional blogger or journalist. I'm just a guy that loves writing about stuff. I'm doing this for me. And I have my own style, for better or worse. Anyway, thanks for reading this! Should have another book post (back to sci-fi) up in the next two weeks. Hell, if everything breaks the way I want, I could potentially have EIGHT blog posts up in the next month-or-so. Enjoy!

P.S. Stephen, why does the Under the Dome TV show SUCK SO MUCH?

I would recommend this book to King fans, and maybe crime fans might enjoy this. It's not perfect, but it's still King, and still great to read his new work

Looks great on a shelf!

    

Sinh, the Slumbering Dragon

Ending the DLC with a toxic-y, fiery bang

    Imagine you've just spent what accumulates to a couple hours, and thirty tries, to defeat Elana, the Squalid Queen. Imagine how excited you'd be when you finally did beat her, and were very anxious to start exploring the next area in the brand new DLC. Imagine the feelings that quell up when you walk through the giant Dragon wall and enter the small chamber behind it, only to find a bonfire and a giant fog gate. Now, imagine that immediately after that frustrating, time (and item) consuming boss battle, you had to jump into another very tough boss battle (that you end up dying in 20+ times). Welcome to Sinh, friends!
    Maybe that opening paragraph is a bit dramatic, but this is essentially what I felt. I was a bit dismayed to immediately have to fight another very difficult boss. And the realization that this was the final boss of the DLC made it a sad event all around. Despite that negativity, this is a pretty good boss battle to end the DLC with, but holy hell, it's rough for melee builds. Thank god the bonfire is about five steps from the fog gate, at least.
    Once you beat Elana, as mentioned, the giant Dragon Mosaic opens up, and leads to a small cave area. It's got a bonfire, and the fog gate. There are two NPC summons here as well. Once you walk through the gate, you're in the boss room. If the fog gate and bonfire aren't tip-offs for another boss battle, this huge, enclosed, "boss-looking" room certainly is. The room is a giant lair, with columns lining a pathway to the back of it. There's rocks and crags jutting up from the ground, and high up on the ceiling. It's a great looking room. Here's the scene the moment you walk through the gate:

Total boss vibe

    If you walk about halfway through the room, suddenly, something in the back shifts, and, well, I'll let you see for yourself:

Aw shit

    Sinh rises up from his slumber, roars, stands on hind legs, and bellows fire with a strange green tint. He hops forward, and this nightmare battle is on. I've seen a lot of people online liken this fight to the Kalameet battle from the Artorias DLC from the first game, and I would say that's fairly accurate. Except Sinh is way goddamn harder. I took out Kalameet solo, after probably a dozen or less tries. I found that to be a very enjoyable, yet tough, battle (the reason I go by "kalameet" on Instagram. Also, it sounds cool). This battle with Sinh is ruthless. Allow me to outline his attacks now. If you are in front of his face, he'll swipe, very quickly, with his clawed hands. This is damn near impossible to dodge. At least for me it was. It's also barely telegraphed, and it hits hard. If you back up from him a bit, he will either shoot fire from side to side, or will perform a long-range head swipe. Both these attacks are simple to dodge: for the fire, just run to the side of him that he doesn't start the fire from (so, if he starts shooting fire on his left, run to his right); for the swipe attack, a simple roll backwards does the job. If you are on his side, he'll try to move back, as to get you close to his face. He will swing his tail as part of a combo of attack he does, but he doesn't seem to do this often (note that you can also cut his tail off. I really miss getting weapons from cutting off boss's tails in the original Dark Souls...). He will also stand on his hind legs and shoot fire directly beneath him, and he'll even turn his head and shoot fire behind him.

Not slumbering any longer

    But Sinh isn't content to just stay standing on the ground. Oh no, sir. He loves to fly up in the air. While airborne, he has several more attacks at his disposal. He'll shoot fireballs down, which are very easy to dodge. If you are underneath him, or close to his underside, he'll slam down on the ground with his body, injuring you. He also likes to swoop down and fly low to the ground, with his head leading the way. This attack I found extraordinarily hard to dodge, for whatever reason. He will also do this attack while shooting fire in front of him. This one was easier to dodge, for some reason. I think that might be all of the attacks. But, the fun doesn't stop there. Look at the below picture. I mentioned it above, but notice something a bit off about that fire?

This is probably my favorite picture I have taken of DSII so far

    See how that fire is kind of green at the end, there? Well, good news, because his fire is toxic! When he breathes any kind of fire, and you get hit by it, your toxic level will rise. He will also leave behind lingering clouds of toxic as well. Admittedly, this wasn't a huge factor in his difficulty, but it can be a game-changer when you get toxic'd, and have precious few seconds to use your poison moss. Compared to the other boss that has toxic status effects, that stupid Royal Rat Authority battle, the toxic here is barely a problem. Still, be prepared.
    As I mentioned, this battle is pretty tough for a melee build. I feel that if you were a strong magic user, this battle is probably not too tough, as you could just sit back and whip magic (I think lightening works best) at him. He does fly quite a bit, so that makes it even easier. But, no such luck for buff, weapon-swinging guys like myself. My basic strategy was to run up to the side/back of Sinh, and attack there. DON'T stand anywhere near his face or his front. It's tough to get totally behind him (near his hind legs), because he constantly backs up, but being on his side works well enough. He has a hell of a lot of health, so it's going to be a long battle, which, again, works against melee builds. That's longer you have to be near him, constantly in danger of getting sliced up by his powerful front claws. Sometimes you can get underneath him and hack a couple of free swings, too. When Sinh flies up, I wanted to run to him, and be underneath him or near him. Being far away from Sinh while he is in the air seems to be a bad decision. So to recap, my strategy was: run to his side/back, attack here, make sure you stay away from the front, and just run to him when he flies. Super easy, no? No.
    I had to summon two guys to beat Sinh. So, two out of the three new DLC bosses I had to summon help for. Oh well, that's how it goes, huh? I'm sure the next time I play through it, I'll be able to beat either Elana or Sinh on my own. But just know, even with two player phantoms assisting me, this was still a tough battle (same with Elana). Summoning doesn't reduce this battle to a laughable cheese-fest. I will say Sinh teleport-lags a decent amount when you are playing online with others. This is a fun battle to do co-op though, because you still need to keep your wits about you, and pay attention. He has a tremendous amount of health when you summon two other phantoms, so it's still a long battle. There was one attempt where I summoned two guys, and got Sinh down to half his health before both my summon phantoms were killed. So now it was me, fighting him solo, while he had the extra health that fighting with phantoms grants him. I damn near almost killed him too, and I'm convinced I would have killed him that attempt if I had been going solo the whole time.
    Once you beat Sinh, you receive the titular Crown of the Sunken King, and the DLC is effectively over. I haven't done it myself, but once you receive the crown, and you also have the Ashen Mist Heart, you can go back into Vendrick's memory and talk to him (you do this in the room you fight him in, after Velstadt. I think you have to have killed him though). I assume after all three DLCs you can go and talk to Vendrick and learn more about the story. This is a very cool add-on. Also, the lore surrounding Sinh, and Shulva, Sanctum City, is awesome. It's quite tragic, really. Check it out if you want online (or discover it yourself. I did a mix of both, but much more on the "read it online" side).
    So, guys and gals, that's all I have for the first chapter of DLC. It's been a fun ride, and I'm very excited for the next chapter, I believe it's "Crown of the Old Iron King", out on August 26. Look for another overview post, along with separate boss posts for all the bosses (I assume another three or four). Hopefully I'll have it finished sooner than I did with this DLC. Coming up, I'd love to be able to finish Batman: Arkham Origins and get a B-LOG SLAYING post up about that (this DLC interrupted my playthough of Batman) before the Old Iron King DLC comes out. Otherwise, I might go to a few shorter SNES games in the coming months to get through. Keep an eye out (I know you all are!)

(UPDATE 8/8/14): Whoopsy, totally forgot the death count/difficulty/rating! Here they are!

Times I died: 22
Difficulty: 9/10
Rating: 9.5/10 (very interesting lore behind Sinh)

Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah (Cave bosses)

The Three Stooges

    If you unlock the door at the start of the Dragon's Sanctum, you'll eventually gain entry to a small, optional area of the DLC called Cave of the Dead. I talked about this place in my overview post of the DLC (read it here, won't you?), but I stopped just short of the fog gate that you get to at the end of it. Would you care to step through it? You would? Oh joy, that's wonderful. In that case, prepare for one of the longest, or maybe the longest, boss battles you're likely to endure in a Souls game!

I only kept this one because it showed their names pretty clearly

    Before I go on, let me apologize for the quality of the pictures. They are awful. And it's not for lack of trying, oh no. My wife and I both took turns trying to get decent pictures of these assholes, but they move fast, they gang up on you, and it's generally difficult to just stand still enough to get clear pictures. I don't ever do this, but for these guys, here's a link to a wiki page that shows clear pictures of what they look like.

    Okay, when you enter the fog gate, three names pop up on your screen: Afflicted Graverobber, Ancient Soldier Varg, and Cerah, the Old Explorer. The first thing you'll notice right off the bat is that Varg looks exactly like Havel. He wears full Havel hear, and uses his Dragon Tooth weapon and his Greatshield. I didn't notice it when I fought them, but reading that small wiki page above, the other two are also dressed in gear from other characters from the game (that would be Graverobber wearing Alva's armor, and Cerah wearing Lucatiel's mask). I have no idea the significance of this, but I'm very curious to find out. Since they don't drop souls when you kill them, I'll have to do some sleuthing.

See? Havel's set. Complete with huge dong hammer

    This battle is essentially a battle against three NPC invader phantoms. Obviously, they aren't red phantoms, but they are similiar: they have massive amounts of health, and they run around like crazy. When you first enter the gigantic room (more on it soon), you'll see the names pop up, and you'll see two NPC's running at you. These are Varg and the Graverobber. Cerah stands back and shoots great arrows. As I said, Varg uses Havel's shield and Dragon Tooth, and he hits extraordinarily hard. He slams it down, he pirouettes with it, and in general just swings it around like a beast. I had the hardest time taking him out. He can easily deplete stamina in a swing or two, and his damn weapon packs a huge punch. He also can run pretty damn fast with all that heavy armor on.
    The Afflicted Graverobber uses dual Berserker Blades. He slashes quickly with them, but he wasn't quite the problem that fake-Havel there was. The problem with both of them is that they both chase you, and they stay by each other's side. So you can't have one without the other. Finally, Cerah shoots those huge great arrows that knock you down. If you get close enough, she (or he? Not sure of the genders of any, but Cerah sounds feminine) replaces the giant bow with an estoc. A few final notes before I divulge my amazing, unique strategy: although it never happened to me, they can backstab you. Be careful for that. In turn, though, you can backstab them. Anything that can happen in a PvP match can happen here. Apparently they use Estus Flasks also, but I didn't experience this.

This would actually be a decent picture of Cerah if I wasn't locked on to her

    Sadly, these three were the only of the three boss battles in the DLC that I actually could solo. My strategy? Use the boss room (and their stupid AI) to your advantage. When you first walk into the room, you're on an almost-bridge like area. To either side are holes, but they just lead to lower levels. These are smaller areas that have pooled with water. Those petrify statues (both the stationary ones and the walking cluster ones) show up down here, but they are hardly a problem. Both sides of the lower areas have ramps leading back up to the main area. Firstly, I took out Cerah, who seems to have the least amount of health. My strategy for this was to run up to her, slash once while running (maybe twice if you have time), and then jump down to the water below. Varg and the Graverobber followed me down into the water, while Cerah stood up at the top still. Then, I'd run up the ramp, and run up to Cerah (be careful of those damn arrows. They hurt tremendously and they knock you on your ass), and slash once or twice again, then jump back in the water. Eventually, Cerah will start moving around too, but she doesn't follow you in the way the other two do, so she's always isolated, and you can get in hits before the other two catch up. If you just keep running, you can take out Cerah easily enough. Now, onto the real annoying part: taking out Graverobber and Varg.

Probably the best one I got of Graverobber

Graverobber attacking, while Varg waits his turn

    My strategy for taking out these two was similar to the Cerah strategy, wherein I would lead them to the right side of the room, and down into a small pool area. Generally, Graverobber would jump down first, and I got hit him once or twice, before Varg showed up as backup. Then, I'd run/roll past them, up the little ramp, wait for them to follow, and repeat that basic action. It's not fun in a traditional sense, but it worked for me. In general, this is a weak boss battle to do solo, because I truly believe this is the only way to really work them down. Otherwise, you'd have to stand toe-to-toe with both Graverobber and Varg, and that just seems impossible. I recently watched an "Impressions" video from a YouTuber named VaatiVidya (an awesome channel for all manner of Souls stuff, I'd highly suggest checking him out), and he mentioned this as the worst of the three boss battles, but in fairness, apparently it's meant as more of a co-op battle. I could see this being an awesome co-op battle, and I fully intend to try it on my next playthrough of the DLC.
    Okay, so you've taken out Cerah, and after much attrition, you've killed the Graverobber in a similar way. Now, you're left with Varg. I distinctly remember killing Havel in Dark Souls by backstabbing him when I got the chance. I'm not sure why I didn't try this here. Instead, I still did the same basic thing: led him to one of the ledges, and jumped down myself. I then tried to get a hit on him as he fell behind me, before he could attack. With a combination of this, and legitimately trying to fight him, I took him out. The entire battle took a good 10-15 minutes, if not even a little bit more. I was happy to at least beat one day boss on this DLC by myself. The rewards aren't amazing, but it was still satisfying to beat them. I mean, you're not gonna buy the $10 DLC and not beat all the bosses, optional or not, right?

At least my message was rated

    As I mentioned above, we had an atrocious time taking pictures. Part of this was because I kept dying trying to get to the boss. The bonfire isn't too far, but you have to run through a gauntlet of bullshit to get to the fog gate. The dark room full of the statues and soldiers is where I died 90% of the time. It's tough to find your way in general, but it's much tougher when you're trying to run and avoid all that crap that's getting spat at you. It got frustrating. And of course, after this, you can't just run through the final few enemies in the next area, because they will gang up and kill you as you try to walk through the fog gate. So you have to kill three soldiers, cut down a few statues, kill at least one of the walking cluster of statues (because I was petrified and killed down here, before I could reach the fog gate), and really, it just gets old after a few tries. It reminds me of the problems I had getting to the Executioner's Chariot boss battle. After our third attempt at getting good pictures, I just said screw it, because I would have wasted my whole night trying to get good ones.
    This is the weakest of the three boss battles here, but strangely, it's the easiest. I'm very curious if there is any background info on these three, and why they are dressed the way they are. They are completely optional, so I don't have a problem with this battle being on the stranger (or, more gimmicky, in the way you have to kill them) side. It's the same with the Ancient Dragon from the main game: lots of people bitched at how unfair/unfun that battle was, but I didn't have a problem with it. It's optional, you fools!
    Anyway, I'll have one more boss post for the final boss of this excellent DLC. Luckily the next DLC chapter is out at the end of August, and hopefully I'll be getting it then. So, after my next post (which should be Monday, 8/4), there won't be any more Dark Souls II stuff for three-or-so weeks. Look out for a B-LOG SLAYING post for Batman: Arkham Origins, and maybe one other too, in the coming weeks. As always, thanks for reading!

Times I died: 3
Difficulty: 8/10
Rating: 6/10