THE UNGODLY LIST

SHANE'S BACKLOG. 

 

AKA - HE'S NEVER GOING TO GET THROUGH IT

 

AKA, AKA - HE'LL PROBABLY BEAT FOUR MORE GAMES THIS YEAR

Ugh, LOOK at this mess. How'd I get myself into this craziness?

    Last night, I decided it was finally time to write down, and count exactly how many games I had in my backlog. I knew it was a lot. I was guessing 50. Hell, maybe even 60. But, if you can read the above number, or if you read my previous post (you probably didn't, and it's okay. Really), you'll know the number is a staggering 94. Oi fucking vey, amiright? I cannot believe I have this many games just sitting, not being played. It did make me realize I must have at least 200 games in my collection. I know it isn't a huge amount compared to some people, but for little ol' me? That's pretty good. I'm also in the (very slow) process of cataloging all my games, so I can get an official count.
    I also realized that, even though getting games comes few and far between for me, I can cool it for a little bit. There's still hundreds of games I'd like to eventually own, but first I should probably knock off some on this list. I will say, there may be a few I take off just because I don't like them. I'll try to play everything to completion, but if I don't like a game, well, I don't like a game. This may have already happened with Phantom 2040 for the SNES. I have put in maybe three hours here and there, and I just can't get pulled in. I'm never thinking, "oh boy, I can't wait to pop in Phantom 2040 again!" It's always more like, "ugh, I really just don't want to play Phantom 2040. But I will." It becomes a chore. And chores are just no fun.
    I haven't figured out exactly how I want to tackle this list, or how I should maintain it on my blog here. For now, I'm just going to list the games in my backlog, and do a simple cross-out and a date completed when I beat one. So this page will serve as a master list, and will hopefully be updated as absolutely promptly as possible. After I beat some games, I'll probably make some separate posts dedicated to them, with pictures, my thoughts, and other general musings.
    Well, without further adieu, here is the mastodonic (is that a word? Blogger says no!) list. They are in no order, but I will list oldest systems first (basically). Thanks for looking y'all!

UPDATE HISTORY:

 

-1/18/15: Beat 6 Golden Coins (GB)

-1/10/15: Beat Splatterhouse (original) and started Super Mario World 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)

-1/1/15: Added Suikoden II, Legend of Dragoon, and Wild Arms ("PS1", via PS3 digital)

-12/28/14: Added Vagrant Story, Threads of Fate, and Suikoden ("PS1", via PS3 digital)

-12/20/14: Added Dragon Quest IX (DS) and Tales of the Abyss (3DS). Also, started Splatterhouse (original arcade, via PS3 version)

-12/18/14: Added Child of Light (PS3) and Pier Solar ("Sega MegaDrive", via PS3 digital)

-12/11/14: Beat Brain Lord (SNES)

-12/8/14: Started Final Fantasy IV Advance (GBA)

-11/15/14: Started Splatterhouse (PS3)

-11/13/14: Started Brain Lord (SNES)

-11/9/14: Beat Super Castlevania IV (SNES)

-11/6/14: Added Brain Lord (SNES)

-11/3/14: Added Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted: Among Thieves, also added Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection and Splatterhouse (all PS3)

-10/31/14: Added Dragon Age: Origins, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Fallout 3 (all PS3) and Obscure: The Aftermath (Wii). Also started Super Castlevania IV (SNES)

-10/30/14: Beat MMPR (SNES)

-10/28/14: Started Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (SNES)

-10/8/14: Started Link's Awakening (GB)

-10/7/14: Beat Resident Evil: Revelations (3DS)

-9/26/14: Added Link's Awakening (GB)

-9/21/14: Beat Batman: Arkham Origins (PS3)

-9/13/14: Added Champions: Call to Arms (PS2)

-8/25/14: Added Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Xbox) and Clock Tower 3 (PS2)

-8/23/14: Added Blue Dragon and Condemned: Criminal Origins for 360

-8/18/14: Took all of the N64 games off this list (getting rid of my tiny N64 collection)

-8/11/14:  Started RE: Revelations (3DS)

-7/22/14: Added Resident Evil: Revelations (3DS), and am putting Star Ocean (PSP) on hiatus for now, to (hopefully) get continued later on down the line

-7/18/14: Finished Grim Adventures (GBA)

-7/14/14: Added The Grim Adventures Of Billy and Mandy (GBA)

-7/14/14: Finished Aliens: Infestation (DS)

-7/7/14: Finished Silent Hill Downpour (PS3)

-6/30/14: Started Aliens: Infestation (DS)

-6/27/14: Added Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare to PS3

- 6/16/14: Added Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning to PS3 (I forgot it, because I own it digitally on my PS3. No hard copy)

- 6/14/14: Crossed out Phantom 2040 for SNES, added start date to Silent Hill Downpour (PS3)

NES:

• Swords & Serpents
• Dragon Warrior
• Ultima: Exodus
• Faxanadu
• Ninja Gaiden 
• A note about this one: I know it's hard as hell, and I am not 100% confident I will actually be able to beat it fully! Only time will tell, eh? 
• Astyanax
• I've played this game a bit, and I really enjoy it. I feel it's kind of an under appreciated gem on the NES
• Star Tropics
• ST II: Zoda's Revenge
• I'm very excited to play both these games
• Duck Tales
• Final Fantasy
• You will notice I have a fucking huge amount of Final Fantasy games in my backlog
•  Battle Of Olympus
•  Super Mario Bros. 2
• I know, I know. I've beaten 1 & 3, but never got around to completing this oddity
• The Legend Of Zelda
• Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link

SNES:

• Final Fight
• Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (started on 10/28/14, beat on 10/30/14)
• Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
• Phantom 2040
• Again, this one may be stricken from the list. I haven't vastly enjoyed my time with the game thus far                 6/23/2014. Don't like it enough to finish.
• Super Star Wars
• Super Empire Strikes Back
• I typically despise Star Wars with a fiery, unholy passion. This trilogy of games for the Super Nintendo is probably the only Star Wars things I like. 
• Super Castlevania IV      -started on 10/31/14, beat on 11/9/14
• Magic Sword
• Brain Lord (started 11/13/14, finished 12/11/14)
• Ys III: Wanderer From Ys
• Jurassic Park
• I actually enjoy this game!
• Ultima: False Prophet
• Drakkhen
• Wolfchild
• Eye Of The Beholder

SEGA MEGADRIVE:

•  Pier Solar and the Great Architects 
• This is technically a "Megadrive" game, but it was released in 2010, and I downloaded it from the Playstation Network on my PS3. I'll include it here instead of under the "PS3" section

GAMEBOY:

• Pokemon Red
• The first Pokemon I ever played was the newest version, Y. It was extraordinarily fun. 
• Final Fantasy Legend III
• The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
• Great little story behind my acquisition of this one: I'm training a new guy Max at work, and it turns out he's HUGE into retro games (and gaming in general). He says something like, "I'm pretty sure I have Link's Awakening in my car". And sure as shit, he does! And he just let's me have it, because he has a digital copy on his 3DS. It's the original black-and-white Gameboy version, not the Gameboy Color DX version, and this is more than okay with me. VERY excited to start it, and it's basically second on my "handheld priority" list, right after I finish RE: Revelations (started 10/8/14)

N64:

EXPLANATION: I recently decided N64 is just not a console I have interest in, at all. I'm getting rid of the few games I have. I plan on getting the OOT release on 3DS, and I'm just crossing my fingers Majora's Mask gets a 3DS release also. (8/18/14)

• Super Mario 64
• Perfect Dark
• The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
• I feel I might need to defend myself on this one a bit. I've been a Zelda fan since at least Link To The Past (although I have distinct memories of playing the first two on NES at a young age), but as a family, when it was a choice between PS1 and N64, we chose PS1 (a choice I would make 1000/1000 times, by the way). I never got to play any of the flagship N64 games. My greatest regret from wanting a PS1 was never getting to play either OOT or Majora's Mask.

PLAYSTATION:

• Final Fantasy Anthology (5&6)
• I've debated long and hard about playing both FF5 and FF6 on this compilation. Obviously this is one of the easiest ways to play 5, but I'd really like to play 6 on the SNES (known as Final Fantasy III, of course). But I also know the price of a damn FFIII cart, and it just seems like it makes way more sense for me to play it on this disc, seeing as how I already have it.
• Final Fantasy Origins (2)
• Now with this one, I'm only going to play Final Fantasy II. I have the original on NES, and I'd like to play it on that machine.
• King's Field
• Suikoden
• I've been getting more and more excited to play this as I've been talking about it with a friend at work. PS3 digital download
• Threads of Fate
• PS3 digital download
• Vagrant Story
• I rented this game once or twice as a kid. I liked it, but never played much. I know it's pretty highly regarded, so I'd love to play through it fully. PS3 digital download
• Mega Man X4
• Mega Man X6
• Mega Man 8
• I don't find the Playstation era Mega Man games to be as fun or endearing as their 8/16 bit counterparts. 
• Deathtrap Dungeon
• This isn't a great game, and I debated putting it on the list because I only have it for nostalgic purposes. But I will play through and (hopefully) beat it
• Final Fantasy VIII
• Final Fantasy IX
• Granstream Saga
• Tomb Raider
• Overblood
•  Another game I know hasn't stood up to the test of time, but I have such great memories of my dad and I playing this game. I have never beaten it myself (I know he did back in the day), so I'd like to change that. Going through will be a great nostalgic trip too
• Nightmare Creatures
• Same deal as Overblood above. 
• Galerians
• Syphon Filter 2
• Treasures Of The Deep
• Chrono Cross
•  I wish I had Chrono Trigger...

GBA:

• Golden Sun: The Lost Age
• I played through, and LOVED, the first game. I started this one directly after finishing the first (this was some time last year), and since it's so similar to the first, I was just kind of burned out from this game. I'm probably a little less than a quarter of the way through.
• Final Fantasy IV Advance
• Again, same deal with FF6 up there. I'd like to play this on the SNES as Final Fantasy II, but chances are I won't have that cart for a while. It's not as pricey as III, but I still don't have the cash for it.   (started on 12/8/14)
• The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
• Started this on 7/15/14         -finished 7/18/14

PS2:

• Castlevania: Lament Of Innocence
• Final Fantasy X
• Final Fantasy XII
• Dark Cloud
• Clock Tower 3
• Very excited to play this. Love getting more survival horror
• Twisted Metal Black
• Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny
• Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time
• Dragon Quest VIII: Journey Of The Cursed King
• Mega Man X7
• Eternal Ring
• Champions: Return to Arms
• Very excited to play this. LOVED the original Champions of Norrath when it first came out. Haven't had a chance to play this one yet
• Phantasy Star Universe
• Red Dead Revolver
• LOVE Red Dead Redemption. Interested to see what they kept from this first game
• Resident Evil 4
• A classic that I haven't gotten around to playing. Hey, that's the reason for this list!
• Resident Evil: Code Veronica X
• A not-so classic (though still good) that I haven't gotten around to beating. This game is hard as hell. Love the graphics 
• Unlimited Saga
• I hear this game really sucks, but I'm still willing to give it a fair shot.
• Kingdom Hearts II
• Another game I started long ago, but never beat. I must have gotten at least half way through, and I can't remember why I stopped. I LOVED the first one.
• Max Payne 2
• I started this long ago, and stopped after probably less than an hour. Not sure why, because I loved the first, and I recently played through the third, which was also fantastic. Anyway, this is low priority.
• Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
• I played and beat the second game, and while I remember it was pretty difficult, it was also way more fun than I had anticipated. Hopefully the first is good also.    

XBOX:

• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• This isn't too high on the priority list just yet (because of the HUGE TIME-SINK it is), but I can't wait to lose potentially 100+ hours to this game, which I hear is better than Oblivion and Skyrim

GAMECUBE:

•  Resident Evil
• This is the only Gamecube we have (it wasn't even mine! It was my then-girlfriend's). I'm very interested to see what it's like compared to the flawed, but awesome, PS1 original.

DS:

• Aliens: Infestation
• While this isn't the only DS game I have, it's the only one I need to play and beat. Bought it cheap at Target without knowing anything about it. From what I've heard from people on Instagram, it's a great game! Wooh! (started 6/30/14)     - finished this 7/14/14

• Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
• Just grabbed this for pretty cheap over the weekend. I probably wont' start it for a while, but I'd like to have it finished by the end of 2015

PSP:

• Star Ocean: First Departure
• I've been playing this game, on and off, for about two months now. It's okay, but it's been tough for me to really get sucked into it. It's not as fun as I was hoping it would be. I'll get into this more in its own post, but my two annoyances are: the fighting (it's basically button-mashing dressed up to look like something more strategic) and the world-map-traversal (so far, 12+ hours in, I still have to walk over the world map. It takes FOREVER to get from one destination to another).  
• *NOTE: I'm putting my playthrough on hiatus for now. I wanna play other PSP/handheld games. I should still pick this back up later on*
• Star Ocean: Second Evolution
• I'm probably going to wait a long while to start this, once I beat part one. This is definitely currently very low on the priority list
• Dungeon Maker II: The Hidden War
• Final Fantasy Tactics: The War Of The Lions

WII:

• Donkey Kong Country Returns
• I'm pretty close to beating this. I just gotta sit down and do it.  
• Super Mario Galaxy
• I started this game, long ago, on my first girlfriend's Wii. I got pretty damn far, and of course, we broke up. I haven't had the energy to fully restart this again, even though it's one of the best Mario game I've played 

• Obscure: The Aftermath
• Haven't played the first, but this was $2.50 at Gamestop, so I decided, why the hell not. Tough to turn down a very cheap survival horror game. 

XBOX 360:

• Fable II
• Fable III
• Condemned: Criminal Origins
• Blue Dragon
• Very excited about this one, and I'd like to move up closer to the top of my "queue"
• Alan Wake
• I'm at least halfway through this game. One of the driving reasons I wanted a 360
• Halo: Reach
• I started this game also, but I'll most likely restart it once I pick it up to continue playing. 
• Gears Of War
• Gears Of War 2

3DS:

•  Resident Evil: Revelations (started 8/11/14)    - finished 10/7/14
•  Tales of the Abyss
• I plan on starting this once I finish Final Fantasy IV Advance

PS3:

• Bulletstorm
• Final Fantasy XIII-2
• Child of Light
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• Fallout 3
•  Had this before, but got rid of it. Gotta give it another chance
• Dragon Age: Origins
• See above!
• Mass Effect 3
• LOVED the second one. Can't wait to play this.
• Resident Evil 6
• My wife and I played through, and loved, 5, for all its faults. We started this one, and she just wasn't feeling it at all. So I'm going solo. I will say, the insistence on those fucking timed-button press parts are infuriating. Can't wait for the Evil Within
•  Two Worlds II
• Another game I know gets bad-to-middling reviews, but I'm eager to try it.
• Saints Row IV
• Batman: Arkham Origins   -finished this 9/21/14
  
• Condemned 2: Bloodshot
• Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• Splatterhouse (started PS3 game 11/15/14)
• As with the Sonic Collection, I mainly got this game because you can unlock the three original Splatterhouse games, and I'd love to play those. So if I have to slog through a mediocre God of War clone (with extreme gore at least), I'm fine with that. This sublist will be the three Splatterhouse games from this collection:
• Splatterhouse
• Splatterhouse II
• Splatterhouse III
• Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection
• Very excited about this one. Just realized very recently that probably every Genesis game I've ever wanted to play is on this collection. I generally dislike Genesis greatly, but there are some (hopefully) great games on here. This sublist will list all the games on this collection I'd like to play through and beat:
• Alien Storm
• Altered Beast
• Golden Axe
• Golden Axe II
• Golden Axe III
• Phantasy Star
• Phantasy Star II
• Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
• Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
• Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention
• Shining Force II
• Shining in the Darkness
• Streets of Rage
• Streets of Rage 2
• Streets of Rage 3
• Alien Syndrome    
• Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch
• Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare (DLC)
• I decided to include this as well. Not a full game, but as far as DLC, it's decently long. It's also the absolute BEST zombie-related DLC that's probably ever been released. 
• Kingdoms Of Amular: Reckoning
• Silent Hill: Downpour
• I'm a huge SH fan, and this, Origins, and Shattered Memories are the only ones I haven't played. Very much looking forward to playing Downpour (started this on 6/14/2014).        -finished this 7/6/14

    Well, there you have it folks! Check back here periodically, I'll strike these through when I finish them. Wish me luck. 

 

Evolution! v. 2.0

Because genius constantly evolves

  

 NOTE (8/15/14): I'M ABANDONING THE MUSIC IDEA. I'M JUST STICKING TO BOOKS/BOSSES/DARK SOULS II/BACKLOG. THAT'S ENOUGH. I'LL KEEP THIS UP FOR POSTERITY'S SAKE (I say that a lot)

    Okay folks, I wanna make a quick note here. This blog has evolved a LOT in the last 3+ months. Originally, it was going to be used to document boss battles. Then, it was going to just be a blog about my endeavors with all the games I had yet to beat (pay attention to this, it pertains to today). Then, it turned into that plus my thoughts/ramblings on the books I was reading. If a blog about video games and books wasn't random enough, I've decided I wanna bring music into the fold. As with my book thoughts, I'd like to make short posts about the music I listen to. I listen to a decently large variety of music, but it always comes back to metal music. I'm a metal-head at heart, even though I can listen to most music (and indeed, I'll hope to showcase that here). I have 500+ CDs (yup, I'm a chump that still buys physical Compact Discs), and my big idea is to showcase every one. I actually started doing this on Instagram (follow me, I'm @kalameet), and got a good 100+ CDs in, before I just gave up. If I do it here on this blog, I can expand my thoughts a bit, and hopefully I'll keep up with it. I know it's a huge undertaking, but each post won't be huge, so I should, in theory, be able to put up a few a week, at least.
    Now, on to the matter at hand for today. Last night, I went through and wrote down every game that I own that is in my "backlog" as it were. For the layman, basically any game I own but haven't beaten yet. I was shocked (shocked!, actually) to find I have a whopping 94 (that's NINETY-FOUR) games, across thirteen consoles, to play through. I honestly thought I only had maybe 50. Talk about eye opening. So, I'm going to compile that list on a blog post, and I'm going to update with my progress/thoughts/opinions of the games I'm playing. I'll include as many shitty pictures as I see fit. And, to tie the whole thing together, I will be putting special emphasis on games with good boss battles.
    So, that's that then. Thank you for sticking with me throughout this schizophrenic time. Enjoy reading about books/music/and video games.

BOOKS: Dolphin Island

Dolphins Really Are Super Smart

Dolphin Island, Arthur C. Clarke

    This was a book I was weary of reading, or even purchasing for that matter. Firstly, I LOVE Arthur C. Clarke. I've only read a handful of his books (half dozen, I think), but two, Rendezvous With Rama, and Childhood's End, were two of the best books I read in their respective years . His big claim to fame I would say is writing the book 2001: A Space Odyssey (he wrote the book as the movie was being made, which is interesting). That was a good book that I definitely need to re-read at some point. Anyway, the point is, he's known as a a heavy hitter in the sci-fi game. He's part of the "big three" of the sci-fi guys (the other two being Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov). Back to my introductory sentence, why was I weary of reading this? It's a short adventure book about...dolphins? That's the impression I got from reading the back. Doesn't sound too "sci-fi" to me, and frankly, I was thinking it was just a throwaway book amidst Clarke's fantastic bibliography. How wrong I was.
    I enjoyed this book immensely. Much more than I ever thought I might. Why did I enjoy it? Well, mostly for the reasons I said above. It's quick. It's interesting. It's not too-heavy in social commentary (I didn't think so anyway). It's fun. And this book, more so than maybe any book I've ever read, made me really wish I could visit the main location. It's a beautifully detailed island community. It made me want to swim in the ocean and explore coral reefs. I really don't like the water much, and I can't swim, so in general, I stay away from the ocean. The fact that this book made me want to immediately just drive to the beach, well, that says a whole lot.
 

    I'm very glad Clarke wrote this book. I know he is deeply invested in dolphins/the sea, and his knowledge shows. He expresses in the back of the book that some of his writing about dolphins here (mostly about their high intelligence) is fantasy. He says that while dolphins are very smart, they probably aren't as smart as he depicts them in the book. Despite that bit of truth-stretching, reading this book gave me a new appreciation of dolphins in general. It also does bring up some questions of morals, such as dolphins and their general freedom (it's said in the book that dolphins are free-er than humans, because they have the whole ocean, but later in the book humans start training the dolphins to find ship wrecks, coral fish for fishermen, etc., and it's brought into question if we are indeed lessening their freedom by doing this). It's interesting to think about freedom as a whole, and are you still free if you are essentially being controlled, even just slightly?
    One very interesting bit of the story that gets little time spent on it (which, in the end, is probably for the best) is during the middle, and at the very end, of the book, there is a small mention of an alien spacecraft that crashed eons ago. It is implied that there are dolphin storytellers that have heard the tale (or is it really truth?) from older storytellers, who in turn have heard it from even older storytellers, and so forth. I enjoyed chewing on this bit of randomness, and it almost seems, judging by the very end of the book, that Clarke could write a second dolphin book that centers more on the search for this spacecraft.
    This book didn't have the bloody fighting and moral/religious quandaries of Orphans Of The Sky, and it didn't have the bizarre alien presence and mystery of Solaris, but I think this book was my favorite of the three. It's short, and for someone with time, it could be read in one sitting. It's well-written, and concise, and, as I mentioned, man did it have some great descriptions of the reefs and diving.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a fun adventure book. Maybe you'll learn a thing or two about dolphins!

BOOKS: Orphans Of The Sky

By Jordan! What the huff is going on here?

Orphans Of The Sky, by Robert A. Heinlein

 

    I'd like to get something out of the way now, before I continue with my thoughts of this (generally) good book. I did a little reading on Goodreads about this book. It's average rating is 3.78 (out of 5), so almost 4 out of 5. Pretty good. I saw some people complaining about the misogynistic tones of this (and other Heinlein/50's-era sci-fi work) book, however. I went into this book, not judging, necessarily, but with a keener eye to try to pick up on this. I've enjoyed a few Heinlein novels that I read years ago (Starship Troopers, Door Into Summer, The Man Who Sold The Moon, The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag, and Citizen Of the Galaxy, but I really didn't care for that one), so I'm not new to him. I honestly cannot possible recall any sort of anti-woman things in those. That doesn't mean they aren't there, I just haven't read those books in a long time. I'm sure they do exist in those books, but I was a dumb teenager and didn't notice them. Now I'm a dumb adult. Unfortunately, there is some misogynistic garbage in here.
    The book is short (my copy was 128 pages), and basically the first 100 pages are fine. There is a passing mention of woman at the beginning, and then nothing until the end. Perhaps the fact that there are no female characters in the book, by and large, can be seen as misogynistic, but that didn't bother me too much. I mean, half the characters in the book are mutants anyway. However, the finale of the book has several cringe-worthy passages. The main character, Hugh, has two wives. Apparently, in this universe, it's the husband's job to name his wife (I guess?). He doesn't even give his second wife a name, and is so gracious as to allow his first wife to keep her old name. What a guy! It must be stated, Hugh has both these wives simultaneously. Other than this, the general tone of how the wives are treated is pretty bad. They are basically just less-than-human (maybe even less than the mutants? The mutants get much more respect from Hugh, and the two other main "good guys", Alan and Bill Ertz) pieces of properties of the men. It's a shame that this comes up, and it adds to the underwhelming ending of the book.
    Let's discuss some good. Overall, this was an enjoyable book, and it had an interesting idea. It's kind of a slam on organized religion (which I'm always down for), and shows how easy it is to manipulate people into believing whatever you tell them. The gist of it is that there's a gigantic spaceship floating through space, and it's inhabitants were all born on the ship, and they all think the ship is their entire universe. Nothing exists outside of the ship. I mean, how can something exist outside of the entire universe? Let's just say, all it takes to convince the main characters is a look at the stars beyond their ship, in the recesses of space.
    There is a whole religion and a set of rules based upon the idea that The Ship (as it is referred to throughout) is the universe. Learning about how the people on the ship live is interesting. It's an existence similar-yet-bafflingly-different than ours. I will say, the mutants (oft-referred to as "muties", which I assume is a derogatory term, although the mutants themselves use it too) were my favorite part of the book. They are basically just humans that were born deformed (due to space radiation, I wanna say), and ostracized from society. The humans fear them, and want them dead. The strongest of them is a two-headed man named Joe-Jim (not a hillbilly, actually. One head is named Jim, one is named Joe). They can be brutally violent (especially barely-brained Bobo. He constantly looks for opportunities for violence and to just eat people), but they don't yearn for it.
    This was an easy read, and I faced none of the confusion I did with Solaris, although I still preferred that book. The ending of this book (despite a nice, bloody final battle) was just a bit too deus-ex-machina for me. In describing how the main characters escape certain death, Heinlein uses the word "luck" (or any of its derivatives) at least half a dozen times. They were lucky enough to be able to use the space pod. They were lucky that it was easy to pilot, despite none of them knowing really how to operate it. They were lucky to be close enough to land on a moon. And hey, they were sure as hell lucky that the moon they landed on was inhabitable.
    Besides the final ten-or-so pages (with all the awful treatment of women, and all that damn luck), this is a good, fast read. It's interesting, has some good action, some diverse mutant characters, and some religious/social commentary. I'm sure you could do far worse.

I'd suggest this book. If you are super-sensitive about characters (and most likely the author) subscribing to the ancient bullshit of women not being equal, perhaps you should pass. 

 

BOOKS: Solaris

You'll never look at alien oceans the same again!

Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem

 

    I don't want to relegate these posts to book reviews, per say (because honestly, there's more than enough people doing that, and doing it much better than I ever could, for me to bother attempting a serious review), but more my general thoughts and opinions about the work. I will give no score, but I will indicate my suggestion to read it or not. So, let's begin, shall we?

    Some time back, I was searching the interwebs (or, interwebz) for book recommendations. I've been on a heavy sci-fi kick the last few years, so that's where my searching lead me. I found a few "must read" sci-fi books lists, and this was on one of them (if I could possibly remember where I found it, I'd link to it. It was probably more than a year ago, if not longer). I read the words, "sentient ocean", and I was in. I've been wanting to find this book for a while. My wife and I, a few weekends ago, went to our favorite used books store, called, well, Used Book Superstore (here's a link: http://www.usedbooksuperstore.com/). They used to have five locations in southern NH and Massachusetts. Unfortunately, all but two of the Mass locations remain. However, they are the two best of those five anyway. They always have crazy discounts, and most books are between $1.99-$4.99. Okay, enough advertising for them.
    Anyway, we went to the one in Burlington, Mass, and found nothing. We decided to try the one in Danvers, which is only about twenty minutes away. As I thought I was setting myself up for more disappointment, I saw this: (!!)

    Automatically, a fairly crappy bookstore(s) visit turned into an awesome one. I snatched this up, and I couldn't wait to read it. Finally, last week, I started it. Since my memory is abnormally lousy, I usually have a tough time recalling everything I've read in a book. So I decided I'd keep notes about this book. This decision also made it easy for me to write up these book thoughts.
    I'm a slow reader, but this book is short, and it goes fast. I read it in a week, which is pretty good for my slow ass. Overall, I liked this book. It was imaginative, weird, confusing (more on that in a moment), and thoughtful. It was actually much different than I thought it was going to be. It's not a bunch of scientists just shooting the shit with the ocean for 211 pages (which I thought it might be), it's far different. The sentient alien ocean, which is (most likely) the only creature living on the planet Solaris, doesn't talk in a traditional sense. It doesn't do anything in a traditional sense. It's very difficult for the human scientists to wrap their minds around this thing. It's so alien, very little is known of it. By the end of the book, both the scientists and reader gain little information about exactly how the ocean works. This is fine with me, I enjoy letting my imagination fill in the blanks. Not everything needs an explanation, and some things just don't have an explanation (at least one that can be understood by human minds).
    I'm not going to summarize the book here. Even though it's a short book, my summary would be needlessly long and probably slightly incoherent, as I'm wont to pop in with innumerable parenthetical notes every other sentence. You can find better summaries elsewhere (I'm great at getting people to leave my page), but I'll briefly talk about two chapters that confused me. The first was chapter eight, entitled, "The Monsters". In it, Kelvin (the main character) reads, at length, from a book in the station's library about the ocean, and it's various forms and structures. The basic gist of the chapter is that the ocean, through long, fantastic processes, creates huge, alien structures that line the planet/ocean. They all have strange names like, "mimoid", and, "symmetriad". It was one of the longer chapters in the books, and it dragged a bit. Lots of flowery language and (for me, at least) tough-to-imagine scenarios with alien geography. I suppose you could look at that as further proof as to just how bizarre Solaris, and it's inhabitant ocean, is, but I find it just a bit annoying.
    This book has lots of chapters where Kelvin reads books and disseminates info from them to the reader. The other chapter that I had a hard(ish) time following was chapter eleven, "The Thinkers". This one has Kelvin reading more books/pamphlets from the library. This time, they are about so-called, "Solarists", or people who closely follow/study the happenings of the strange planet. It goes through several theories that scientists throughout the ages have had about Solaris, and it just becomes too much. It gets boring, and it's a dry read. I found myself reading without really absorbing. Almost reading for the sake of getting through, to the next chapter.
    Other than those two chapters, the rest of the book was a delight. It makes you think about life other than human life. It makes you think about how much we just don't know about literally everything, besides ourselves and human life. And even that, we aren't too sure of. I'm interested in reading more from Mr. Lem, and hopefully I have an easier time locating them than I did with Solaris.

I'd recommend this book. Just pay attention when you read some of the info-heavy chapters. 

 

Evolution!

And it didn't even take tens of thousands of years!

    Okay, guys and gals. We've come to a crossroads of sorts. When I first conceived of this blog, it was going to be strictly about boss battles. And since Dark Souls II had just come out, and since those games (in general) have amazing boss battles, I figured what a great place to start. After finishing the game, I was stuck. What game could I go to next that had great bosses that I could write about? Nothing much came to mind (besides the first two Souls games). Then I thought of the God Of War series. Now that's a series that has great boss battles. But, I've beaten all but the most recent game (Ascension). While I would like to go back and replay those games, I have such a gigantic backlog of games (from NES up to PS3) that I decided it was time to start playing through them. I figured, perhaps I could take pictures, and document my blind progress through all these games. Original? Certainly not. But perhaps I could bring a slightly different perspective? Maybe people like my inane ramblings?
    I'll take pictures also, and I'd like to take this space here to apologize, once and for all, for the quality of the pictures. As this is still largely just a service to myself (I'm my target audience at this point, because I'm not convinced, despite the page view numbers, that more than one or two people really even look at this. Thanks spambots!), I don't have the money nor justification to buy that fancy capturing hard/software. I would like it, because I'm sure it makes things much easier, but that's likely not happening. I'll try to take the best pics I can with my phone, and use those. Who knows, if people actually like reading what I write, maybe I can save and splurge on a capture device.
    So, that's that. Going forward, the video game section of this here blog will be my documentations of playing through these games, with an emphasis on bosses, where applicable.
    Wait, video game section? Isn't it ALL video games, you might ask yourself. The short answer is

NO!!

 

    Now, for the long answer. Another passion of mine is reading. After a long drought of non-reading, I'm getting back into it. I've decided I'm going to post my thoughts on what I'm reading. Not reviews, let's say (overdone, eh?), but just my general thoughts and opinions. Now, this may be interesting for the following reason: I'm blind and can't read books* I'm not really smart. I mean, I'm not an idiot, but when it comes to reading and interpreting what I read, well, I'm bad. My imagination has a very difficult time sometimes putting the words on the page into coherent images in my mind. As I read mostly sci-fi, this is sort of problematic. Perhaps with my writings here, I can do two things: help myself figure out/remember things I've read, and let other people know that it's okay not to understand everything you read. You don't need to be an English teacher to appreciate a book. If you read a book, and then you read the reviews of said book, and all you find are people arguing the many enlightened themes of said book, and you say to yourself, "I thought it was just about a planet full of monkeys?", well, then know you are not alone. Maybe this is the place for you. Semi-intelligent book discussion, without people looking down on you!


    So, there it is, ladies and germs. I'd say the split will be 75% video games, 25% books (I'm a slow reader, coupled with my finite amount of time per day I get to read). Hopefully, if any real person reads any of this, they'll enjoy it. My first post under the new format will be for a SNES game called Phantom 2040. I'm not sure when it will be up, but I'd like something to be up by the holiday weekend. See you all there!

Boss Stats and Numbers

Get ready for grade-level arithmetic!

    I died a lot in Dark Souls II over 112+ hours between two characters. Specifically (for the purpose of this blog), I died a lot on bosses too. I'm going to break down some simple numbers and go into a bit of depth about how I fared against the thirty (30!) bosses in the game.


    Firstly, my total death count to all the bosses on my initial playthough was 179. 179 over 30 bosses. That is an average of 5.9 deaths per boss (a few high numbers, and few zeroes, really skew the numbers)! That can basically be rounded up to six deaths per boss battles. What other games can you think of where you die an average of SIX TIMES PER BOSS? Imagine if you died six times on every boss in Final Fantasy VII, for instance. You think Dark Souls II has a lot of bosses? That game has probably double the amount, at least (factoring in the sidequest ones too). God, playtime on that game would be outrageous. Imagine if you died six times to all the bosses in ANY turn-based RPG? Yikes.


    My most deaths on any boss was a staggering 21. This happened on two different bosses: Lost Sinner and the Belfry Gargoyles. That's 42 deaths to kill two bosses. I would imagine that that's more than you would die in most other games, altogether. Also, for fun's sake, the boss I died to the most on Dark Souls was (surprise, surprise) Ornstein & Smough. I don't know the number exactly (it was years ago, after all), but I have no doubt that it was in the mid-twenties, at least. A nice note from the here and now, I'm currently playing Dark Souls, going for the platinum for that one (only need two trophies), and I just can. Not. Beat. Gwyn. Ugh. He is another boss from this game that is pretty high on the death list I believe (and to hell with your parrying suggestion. I can't parry). Now, the boss I died to the most in Demon's Souls was probably Flamelurker. Final note about Demon's, I remember easily beating both Fool's Idol and Old King Allant my first time through, and on basically every subsequent playthrough, they both (especially Allant) give me huge problems. Yeah, Fool's Idol. Lame.


    Conversely, I killed five bosses on my first try. These were: Giant Lord, Prowler Magus, Scorpioness Najka, Mytha, Baneful Queen, and Flexile Sentry). In comparison, if memory serves correct, in Dark Souls, I killed Iron Golem, Pinwheel, and I believe Demon Firesage and Centipede Demon on first tries (not 100% on those last two. They were no more than 1 death, for sure). For Demon's Souls, I think the only ones I killed on my first try were Leechmonger and Dirty Colossus. For such brutally tough areas, those guys are pushovers.


     Now, delving into my self-appointed (and only slightly arbitrary) difficulty ratings, we see that the average difficulty rating is an underwhelming 4.6, which would roughly be the difficulty of somewhere between Executioner's Chariot, Pursuer, and Velstadt. No bosses got a 1, a 4.5, or a 10 for their ratings. The highest rating was a 9.5, for only one boss battle (two bosses), that being those pesky Throne defenders. Three bosses got ratings of only 1.5, which would be the lowest (this dubious honor goes to Mytha, the Skeleton Lords, and poor old Magus). Now, a bit of a rant. Not entirely a rant, but I see people all over the forums and message boards I look at, and many people complain the bosses in this game are too easy. Are they really though? Sure, there were definitely some simple ones here, but I think that's more to do with the sheer number of them. I will say, I was dismayed a bit, initially, with the difficulty of some of the bosses. There were enough tough, challenging bosses to ultimately satisfy me, however.
    So let's quickly think back to Demon's and Dark Souls, and the difficulty of their bosses. Now that we've separated ourselves from the games (Demon's is FIVE years old, while Dark is about 2.5 years old), we can truly look back on the games and realize, "eh, there's not many hard bosses in these games either." Case in point: how many really tough bosses are there in Demon's Souls? I would consider tough to be an 8 or above on my difficulty scale. Going in order, starting at 1-1, Old King Allant (probably the hardest in that whole game), Flamelurker, and the Maneaters. Other than that, are any of the bosses worthy of an almighty "8"? Let's start again from the beginning, for a very quick rundown:

• Phalanx: easy
• Tower Knight: intimidating at first, but easy
• Penetrator: medium (unless Biorr is helping, then SUPER easy)
• Armor Spider: is pretty close to being on that 8+ list, but you can kill him from afar with well-timed dodges, and a hell of a lot of arrows
• Dragon God: easy
• Fool's Idol: easy, but can be super annoying (at least for me)
• Old Monk: if you're fighting the computer (which I assume everyone is at this point): pretty easy. If you're fighting a human, well results may vary. Could very well be the toughest battle in the game
• Adjudicator: annoying (because of the small area you fight him in), but ultimately easy
• Old Hero: a joke
• Storm King: can be annoying as hell, but easy
• Everything in world 5 is simple

    So, three hard bosses out of all those? Now let's go to the original Dark Souls. Same game: how many tough bosses? Ornstein & Smough (no doubt), Four Kings (even this is very questionable, but I'll include them), and Gwyn (no parrying, anyway). There are some fringe players too (I'm not going through the whole boss roster): Capra Demon (because of that bullshittingly small room) and Sif. I will say, the DLC is no fucking joke. All four of those bosses I'd probably rate at least a 7 (and truly, after Sanctuary Guardian, the final three might be 8.5+). So again, three bosses, with a possible two more.
    Now, what does this mean for Dark Souls II? Well, if anything, that there are as many hard boss battles as in the previous games, but because there are more of them, and they are more spaced out (the hard ones I mean), it seems that there aren't as many.
    Finally, here's a more detailed breakdown difficulty ratings from Dark Souls II (meaning, the number of battles that fall between the specific difficulty rating):

0 - 2.5:   9
3 - 5.5:   9
6 - 8:     7
8.5 - 10: 5


    I think that's all I can squeeze out of difficulty ratings. I think that's it anyways. So, what have we learned, exactly? I love these games too damn much. Really, there is no other conclusion that can be drawn. Why put so much work into something like this? It's a labor of love, and it was a blast to put together. I love writing (even if I don't "blog" like a pro. I'm sure my paragraph structure and order is not optimized, and I'm sure the tense of most of my writing is out of whack. Sit on it, Potsie!), and I love these (and many other) games.



     At first, I was going to say I was going to have one final Souls post, that would rank all the bosses from all the games, but as I've been compiling this list, I realized it was a fool's errand. It's very difficult to rank 73 bosses in an honest, complete way. Meaning, how much of a difference is there really, between numbers 56 and 57? It all comes down to arbitrary minutia. So, I'm not going to make the list. Perhaps one day I'll do a top ten list. So, sorry if you're disappointed (you aren't trust me). Stay tuned for what's coming on this (ever-evolving) blog!

NG+ Boss Notes

Here there be NG+

    Okay, I'm going to use this one post for all my NG+ boss musings. Some battles are exactly the same as the first playthrough, so those will be super simple. No need to retread old posts. I'm not keeping count of deaths, and I'm not going to rate difficulty like the first time around. This will be reserved for my general thoughts on how the battles differ from the first playthrough, and how, if it all, they were tougher. So check back here regularly, it will be updated a lot throughout the next two-or-so weeks. So, without further adieu, here we go! Finally, I'm not fighting every boss. I can tell you right now, unless I have a change of heart (I won't), I won't be fighting: Royal Rat Authority, Darklurker, or Vendrick. I might try Ancient Dragon with the Gyrm shield, just to see if I can cheese him. Otherwise, everyone else will be included.

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The Last Giant-

    This one was identical to the first battle. Just stay near his ankles, slash away, and make sure you avoid his stomping. Nothing new here. 

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The Pursuer-

    Again, this battle is the same as the first. He'll still fun as hell to fight, even if you can beat him in one or two attempts. I almost killed him the first time you see him, in that building with the firebomb throwing guy. I made a dumb mistake and got killed. It's supremely satisfying to kill him, deftly rolling from all his attacks, and not getting hit yourself. I will say, one thing I didn't notice on my first playthrough is the completely fucked hitbox of his blue-sword-curse attack. He stabs his sword forward, but if you're on either side, even if you aren't in the path of the sword, you'll get hit. Very annoying. He also has a dark attack I've only seen him use ONCE. If you're far away, he'll shoot  six or seven dark orbs at you. I've never seen him use this before, and it killed me because he caught me off guard. 

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Dragonrider-

    This battle was actually NG++ because of the bonfire ascetic I used in my initial playthrough. As you'll all remember, I had to summon a phantom to help me kill the Dragonrider on my very first playthrough. Well, I went through on my ascetic-ed Heide's Tower Of Flame to fight this guy proper. I beat his jabroni ass so easily. It was pathetic, really. WHY did I ever need help? Anyway, I just rolled from his attacks, and cut him down with my longsword. Simple. For my NG++ run, I actually summoned help again. But, I was grinding those Sunlight Medals (going for the Platinum trophy!), so I summoned a SunBro for that. This guy is super easy, enough said. 

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Skeleton Lords-

    I distinctly remember this being one of the easiest battles on my first playthrough. While it is still easy now, it's actually a little crazy and tense. Firstly, I spent a good 90-or-so minutes just co-oping this boss as part of the SunBro covenant (I honestly don't remember the name. Heirs of the Sun right?). It was amazingly fun. In fact, one of the most fun things I've done in this game. Some of those battles got hectic, and they kept me on the edge of my seat even. Especially when, instead of killing one Lord at a time, then dealing with the resulting normal skeletons, the clowns I was helping would just kill all three, then have like 15 normal skeletons ganging up on us. I died once, and a world master died once, during my co-op session. As for my own battle against them, it wasn't hard, but, again, I was much more cautious than I was the first time around. I thought this battle kinda sucked the first time through, but I've come to appreciate it more now.

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 Covetous Demon-

    This boss is just as easy as the first time. He killed me once, but I don't even remember how. Nothing new to add here, just watch out for that double-roll over move!

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Mytha, the Baneful Queen-

    Well, this one was certainly interesting, and quite a bit different than my initial playthrough. As we all know, you have to burn that windmill to drain the poison pool from Mytha's room. Except, apparently sometimes there's a bug where you burn the windmill...and it doesn't drain the posion. And there's nothing you can do about it, except man up and beat her in the poison. I basically did that. Two new aspects with the poison: first, you'll be constantly poisoned, and constantly losing health. Secondly, the poison heals her, so her health is always slowing returning. If you can hit her enough, this isn't a huge deal. But it's tough to constantly be on her, because you have to worry about your always-draining health, and you have to dodge her attacks (which I had a HELL of a hard time doing for some reason. It was partly due to being SO focused and concerned about the poison. It was partly due to it being very late at night). I got fed up with trying (died at least ten times), so I decided to just summon Jester Thomas, an NPC right outside her room. He's proficient with pyromancies, and he aggroed her enough for me to kill her easily. I could have probably taken her out myself, but I was tired and sick of dealing with her. I must note, if it wasn't for the poison, this battle would still be easy, and I would have probably killed her my first try.

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Executioner's Chariot-

    I decided I wanted to fight this guy earlier on, instead of being almost halfway through the game. The result? Eh, he still wasn't that hard. The skeletons were a little more annoying this time around (I killed all three mages this time though!), and the horses (after you crash the chariot with the gate) were much more of a pain, but all told, I only died three or four times.  The run-up to the boss is more difficult, as it was before. I'm sure you all remember how much I bitched about it, and how I was killed at the fog gate several times because I chose to run past all the enemies, and they follow you relentlessly up to the fog. Well, running past them all this time is not possible. For starters, four of the leather-clad guys are red phantoms (and they added another dual-moon sickle red phantom too), and there is also a red phantom in front of the fog gate that DOES NOT DISAPPEAR after you kill him. Luckily it only took a few tries, because fighting through them all gets tiresome.

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Old Iron King-

    I purposely tried to take a different path this time as opposed to the first playthrough. So here we are, at the Iron Keep. Tried (and failed. Ugh, I'll get to that soon enough) taking down Smelter Demon for a bit, but needed a change of pace, so I killed the King here. He was just as easy as before. Not much to say. I died once. However, I did realized there is a GODDAMN BONFIRE RIGHT NEXT TO HIM! In that final small square room (with all the fire and the spikes on the wall), before you get to the outside area, there is a ladder that leads to a bonfire. So, thanks anonymous player that left a message about there being a ladder and bonfire close by!

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Ruin Sentinels-

    Welp, this boss is still a huge pain in the ass. I did manage to beat them on my own (something I failed to do on NG), but it took close to (if not at least) a dozen attempts. This is also one of a very small handful of bosses that I still need a shield for. For whatever reason, I cannot consistently roll from their attacks. I had to soak up the damage with the shield, then get one or two hits in when I had a chance. This was a long battle that involved much patience. And frustration. I tried using Great Magic Weapon (a sorcery! I respec'd several times to land on this current build, with an absurd 18 intelligence) before the battle, to take out the first Sentinel, Yahim. By the time I killed it, my buff was basically gone for the fight with the other two. I didn't have the time to use it again. I also tried killing Yahim regularly, then buffing with GMW before I jumped down to fight the two. Eventually, I just went with killing Yahim as fast as possible (so, GMW) and focusing on slowly, methodically taking the other two down. The attempt before I finally killed them, I had the final two down to less than probably 20% health each, and my damn shield (durability was only 20) was about to break! So, in my extreme haste in trying to be able to equip a different one, I got killed. Of course after that, I equipped two shields. I was very happy to take these assholes out finally.

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Smelter Demon-

    At first, I thought I'd beat this bastard on my second attempt. I got him down to probably 20% health, and I was feeling good. Then I died, and the damn wheels just came off. I then had at least ten more failed attempts. Some were good (but none as good as that second attempt), some were bad, and some wer atrociously bad. I was getting beyond frustrated. I was going at him with my drakekeeper +10 sword (which has effectively replaced my longsword for now), two-handing, just rolling from his attacks. Exactly the way I played the encounter on my first playthrough. I was using my newly accquired Great Magic Weapon, and doing decent enough damage. When he went full-on fire berskerker, I just couldn't persevere. So, I pussed out, and in the name of getting a trophy, I summoned Lucatiel of Mirrah. Killed Smelter on my first try with her help. She didn't attack much, and drew just enough aggro to give me breathers when needed. She survived it (blah blah, she was way harder to keep alive pre-patch, I know. Trust me, I see it enough online), so, only two more boss battles with her. I started a new character (pure sorceries, baby!) when I beat NG with this character, and I was going to get the Lucatiel and Banhart trophies with her (since she wouldn't have to deal with NG+ difficutly), but I really just had no more patience with Smelter, so I decided I'll get those (at least Lucatiel) on this character. 

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Belgry Gargoyles-

    Boy, oh boy. I thought this was going to be a flashback to my first playthrough. I actually thought it was going to go worse, if that's possible. But I ended up beating them on probably my sixth attempt. Maybe seven at the most. Much better than 21. It went similarly to the first time: slowly chipping away the health of one; strafing; keeping my shield up (another battle I CANNOT do without a shield); and healing often. I even whipped out the avelyn, which was moderately helpful (although I didn't use it nearly as much as I thought I would. It just leaves you SO OPEN after you use it). Very happy to have these clowns dealt with. I believe Lost Sinner will be next, and that'll be a NG+ kinda battle. Hopefully Lucatiel is up for it!

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The Lost Sinner-

    I feel dirty about this one. Like, really dirty. I summoned Lucatiel to help (although mostly to continue her questline). I have read about this battle on NG+. I've heard it's one of the hardest battles in Souls history. Yikes. Well, Lucatiel and I stepped through the fog (after dicking around in Sinner's Rise for WAAAAY too long), saw that familiar cutscene, and...properly served the Sinner her shit on a silver plate. First try, destroyed her. The fabled red pyromancy phantoms that get summoned in halfway through the battle (or when her health is at 50% I believe) were no match for me. I took each out in three swings, I think, while Lucatiel kept the Sinner busy. Once the phantoms were dealt with, Lucatiel and I whaled on Sinner, and had her killed soon after. I could see the difficulty if you don't have some help, and I plan on killing her myself on my NG++ run. Until then...

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 Flexile Sentry-

    Another battle that I cheesed hardcore, and I feel bad about it. Again, I summoned my girl Lucatiel (my final summon of her), and we wrecked ol' Flexy's shit (you thought I forgot about that nickname?). Even the two assassins that are in the room were dispatched easily enough. This battle was a bit tougher than Sinner, even with Lucatiel. Still killed ol' Flexy on the first try. Again, on my NG++ run, I'll kill him proper. I still love this boss design though. 

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 Scorpioness Najka-

    Nothing new about this battle, although I will say it gave me some problems, and I died my first attempt. I found myself constantly scrambling, and I had to use lots of Estus. Overall, a bit tough, but not nearly as tough (or annoying) as the damn lion soldiers leading up to her.

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Prowler Magus & Congregation-

    I summoned Benhart of Jugo for this battle (again, trying to complete his questline for the trophy), and I plan on bonfire ascetic-ing and fighting with Benhart again. I actually died on this battle. I was beside myself. The battle I had ruthlessly mocked on the first playthrough, I now die on? Yuck. Those damn white-robed sorcerers (or whatever the hell they are) killed me with lightning the first time.Otherwise, it's still super simple. Kill the white-robed guys, kill Magus, kill the rest of the congregation. Bam! Also, this battle was already NG++ because I used an ascetic at the end of my first playthrough, to kill these idiots to get some last-second souls, I believe.

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The Duke's Dear Freja-

    Now we head into the portion of NG+ where I had far more trouble on easier bosses than I did on my first playthrough. Freja took me at least seven attempts, which I know was less than the first time. Those damn spiders, which I had said were no problem at all, well, they were a big fucking problem this time. Seriously, why are they so damn powerful? Each one could legitimately two-hit me. Huh? In comparison, at full health, I could withstand probably four of those laser beam attacks from Freja and still be alive (although, when he (or she? Is Freja a girl?) stomps with his (her?) legs, that killed me in one hit, having probably 90% of my health). Anyway, the spiders were the huge annoyance here. Otherwise I just baited Freja into the laser attack, then ran up and smashed away at the other head. Also, I briefly switched up weapons, to a Curved Dragon Greatsword +3, which deals great damage, even one-handed (and is fairly quick for a greatsword), but still was just too slow. I may have settled on the Mastodon Greatsword (currently +7). Once I get it to +10, it should output crazy damage. Two handed swings fairly fast, and in wide arcs. Also, forgot to mention, on NG+ and beyond, after you go through the encampment, and past the part with the falling boulders, Freja shows up to attack, outside the doors to the spider caves. I think this is very cool, and it just adds to the truly "new game" that NG+ is.

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Royal Rat Vanguard-

    This battle is just as easy as the first time. There's not a whole lot to add. I actually killed the Vanguard with three Flame Swathes. Simple stuff

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The Rotten-

    My god, what a pain in the ass this battle was. I distinctly remember this battle being pretty easy. Welp, I died at least eight times. He only killed me with ONE move: he has two overhead cleaver swings, and one is very slow and telegraphed (easy to dodge from), and the other is fast. I could never dodge it. Worse still, he follows it up with a second quick slam, then either a final third one, or a wide swing. For whatever reason, I could not predict that attack and roll from it, and he caught with me it time and time again. I finally took him down (using that Curved Dragon Greatsword, with Flame Weapon), and boy, was I happy to do it.

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Dual Dragonriders-

    Well, this battle was way harder than it had any right to be. It was also a case of frustration taking over, so I'd take dumb risks and I just got careless. I used the same strategy as before, but for some reason (perhaps they were offended at how easy I found them on NG?), they put up quite a fight.

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Looking Glass Knight-

    This battle was highly annoying because Benhart is a complete moron. I know the AI for computer-controlled summons is normally pretty bad, but god, Benhart takes the idiot cake. I summoned him because I needed one more boss battle with him kept alive to get the trophy for inheriting his equipment (update: got both his and Lucatiel's trophy!). Without him, this battle can be tough, but really it isn't too bad. Trying to keep this bastard alive was not easy. He doesn't block or dodge, at all. I don't know if it's possible for AI summons to dodge or block, but he just stood in front of Looking Glass Knight, ABSORBING damage like it was his day job. I suppose it sort of was. I had to get that Red Eye Ring (which looks super badass, by the way) which puts enemy focus on you, so that I could keep Benhart alive. Otherwise, the battle was pretty easy once I did this. 

 

 

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Demon of Song-

    Simple. I actually re-read my blog post on this guy, to remember my exact strategy. I used it, and whooped him on my first try. Thanks me! This blog is already paying off!

 

 

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 Velstadt, the Royal Aegis-

    I'm not going to lie, by this point, I was just sort of rushing to get through the rest of the game, so I could get onto NG++, so I could REALLY rush through that, to get to Wellager in Drangliec castle, so I could buy a few spells and get my platinum trophy. Between that, my huge backlog of games (which will be featured on this very blog!), and my need to put this game down and give it a rest for a bit, I decided I'd just kinda fly through the rest of it. With that in mind, I summoned help for this battle. This guy is still a bastard, and I would have spent a long time on him if I went at it by myself.

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Guardian Dragon-

    He's still a giant puss.

 

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Giant Lord-

    This battle is still simple. I had an easier time with it this time around. I really find this one of the most underwhelming bosses in the game. He has great lore attached to him, but otherwise, how BLAH!

 

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Throne Watcher & Throne Defender-

    Oi freaking vey. God, what a giant pain in the ass these guys are. I was dreading having to fight these guys basically as soon as I opened the Shrine of Winter. I didn't spend as many deaths on them, but I still summoned help. I summoned Benhart (the big galoot!) and Head of Vengarl again. They drew both of their aggro, and actually dealt decent damage, as I just slammed them with my Mastodon Greatsword +10 (imbued with flame weapon. My favorite pyromancy). I did start the battle with a nice chaos storm, which did pretty good damage to both the Watcher and Defender (even though I took some damage). 

 

 

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Nashandra- 

    This one was decidedly easier than the first playthrough, mainly because I had a good strategy (I again referred back to this very blog to refresh my memory!). I beat her my second try, I believe. One amazing factoid I hadn't realized until I saw it written somewhere on the Giantbomb Dark Souls II forum (or an articale on IGN, honestly can't remember which) is that, if you get the cut scene of Nashandra right after killing the Throne defenders (I don't think you get this if you kill the Throne defenders before you have the giant's kinship), Nashandra enters through a fog gate .Like you're her final boss she has to fight, to finish her own quest. Which both slightly validates my thoughts on Nashandra manipulating you, and blows my freaking mind. I find this so incredibly awesome, all I can do is use cliches and boring adjectives to describe it.

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    Well, that's it folks. That's all I can really write about the bosses of this game. Sorry the last few updates have seemed rushed. Here's what's upcoming, as far as Dark Souls II is concerned. I hope to have a "stats" post (number of times I died, things like that) up tonight, or this weekend. Beyond that, I'm going to make an ultimate ranking of all the 70+ bosses throughout the three games and DLC. That should be up this upcoming week. After that, I think I can close the book on DSII. I plan on playing through some of my backlog of games over the summer, starting with some SNES. I'll go into more detail in a later post, but it won't focus solely on boss battles. Let's face it, not every game has such nuanced, detailed, spectacular boss battles as the Souls games. So, hopefully you'll continue to join me in my video game endeavors. Thanks all!

 

 

Darklurker

Asshole(s)

     Where to start with this one? This guy is one of the hardest bosses in the game, and you have to go through three of the hardest areas of the game to get to him. Firstly, you have to find Darkdiver Grandahl (the old guy in the fancy wheelchair) in three hidden area. Once you find him in all three, you can join the Pilgrims Of Dark covenant. Unlike every other covenant in the game, this one has nothing to do with any multiplayer. This is strictly PvE. As such, there's no ABSURD requirements to rank up in this covenant. All you have to do is beat the three Dark Chasms Of Old. Beat one, and you gain rank one. Beat the other two (for a total of three), and you gain rank two. Beat Darklurker, and your gain rank three and max out the covenant. Even though this is a tough covenant, it might be my favorite. I wish there were more PvE covenants (I do plan on trying the Company Of Champions also).
    Okay, each Dark Chasm Of Old has four enemies you must kill. After that, all you have to do is light a giant torch. Killing four enemies sounds easy, but they are very difficult enemies. There are a couple NPCs from Dark Souls (Havel the Rock, Pharris, a few others I don't remember), and other various tough human-type enemies. Havel in particular is the toughest of all the regular enemies in the Chasms. All three are dark and full of cliffs and falling hazards, which just makes it all so much harder. But, preserve throughout the three, and you're "rewarded" with one of the toughest bosses in the game.
    After you beat the final Chasm, you'll jump into the hole with the mist, and you'll get a loading screen. Shortly after, you'll land in a dim cave, and in front of you is the Darklurker. I was hoping he might be some new, updated version of Flamelurker. But alas, this one might be more annoying. Let's talk about his appearance: very unique for a Souls game. He's a dark, angelic being. He has wings, and four arms (one set of arms is always crossed over his chest). He wears some dark robes with a hood. He's great looking, and very ominous and mysterious. 

Casting that bullshit dark orb attack

    Now, his attacks. He has a million attacks. Literally, I think he has more attacks than any other boss, by a couple at least. If you're close to him, he'll swing a bright sword at you. This sword has a longer reach than you would think, and it can be tough to dodge. Next up, if you're really far away, he shoots a soul spear, which can be rolled from easily enough. He has two other attacks where he lifts his arms and creates either a fire, or dark, circle over his head. The fire one shoots three fireballs, and these are very easy to dodge. The dark one shoots a slow, semi-homing dark ball, and it explodes when it hits you or the ground. This attack DESTROYED me so many times. It does considerable damage, and it's tough to dodge. Run from it! Don't roll! ROLLING JUST DOESN'T SEEM TO WORK!
    Besides these attacks, he can also teleport, which doesn't really accomplish much. He will float up and shoot a magic beam out of his hands. It is slow, but hurts a lot. It's easy enough to dodge (run under him), and it gives you a brief breather to heal/buff, what have you. Now, the fun part: when he gets down to around half health (sometimes it's like 75% of his health left, sometimes it's less than 50% of his health left), he duplicates himself! Oh yes! You thought one Darklurker was too easy? Well, take this motherfucker! THANKFULLY, they both share a health bar. I couldn't imagine doing this battle if the second Darklurker had its own health bar. After the split, they both have those same moves. Let's get down to the dirty. 

He's more dangerous than he looks

    Fighting two of these guys is incredibly difficult. They both use different attacks, and they don't let up. You have to keep them both in front of you at all times (this is where the teleporting move really sucks. Having them both in front of you, then having one teleport to anywhere else in the cave, thus losing him, can be a battle-breaker). Also, BE MINDFUL OF THAT SOUL SPEAR ATTACK! Let's set a scene quickly: you have Darklurker(s) down to only a quarter of his health. They are both in front of you, and you're feeling good. Let's say you get hit with a sword attack from one, and the other moves back a bit. As you back up, getting ready to heal, you keep your eye on the Darklurker closest to you, and you press, "square" to drink Estus. Just then, you notice the other Darklurker has hurled the soul spear at you, and you don't see it until it's too late, becayse you forgot about him. You die, because you can't possibly get healed in time before the spear hits. I died this way at least four times. It's unbelievably frustrating.
    Next frustrating thing: dying. And why is this? Because, every time you die, you have to go through a Chasm again to reach the Darklurker. This is super tedious. And you can't even just run through the Chasm, bypassing the enemies. You have to kill all the enemies in the Chasm to open the fog gate to access the boss. I cannot tell you how tired this is. Actually, I can! First off, I'd suggest using the Chasm that's past the Shaded Ruins bonfire. It's the easiest of the three. So, you start at the Shaded Ruins bonfire, and run through the area, killing all those lion soldiers, until you get to the Chasm. Then, you have to talk to Grandahl, and offer up a human effigy. YUP! Every time you die, you need to use a human effigy to gain access to the Chasm again. I ran out, and had to murder the old hag Fire Keepers and their handmaid, for nine more effigies. Anyway, after the portal to the Chasm opens, your step in it, and wait for the loading screen. Then, you run through the Chasm, carefully killing the enemies (can't die here, that would be a waste of a human effigy), until you get to the fog hole. Jump in, wait at a loading screen, then FINALLY you're at Darklurker! Imagine doing this a dozen times. Not fun. I will say, by the end, all of the lion soldiers and the enemies in the Chasm stopped respawning, so the last few runs were pretty easy.
    Okay, I think I've discussed every annoying thing about this battle. How did I beat Darklurker? This was the only boss battle where I didn't use my sword to kill the boss. I have a Pyromancy Flame (+7 I believe), and a few pyromancies. I used Flame Swathe and Fire Orb, because Mr. Lurker is weak to fire. At first, I would use these as much as I could, then use charcoal pine resin on my sword. Eventually I ran out of the resin. My sword otherwise wasn't doing sufficient damage, and I don't like fighting him close anyway. I also used every item I had that restored spell usage. After I ran out of ALL OF THAT, I decided I needed to change my strategy. And here it is:
    I used the Pyromancy Flame, and, wait for it, an avelyn! This is a fast-shooting crossbow. I bought 180 fire bolts for it, and used almost 80 of them. They only did 39 damage, which sounds super lame, except it was enough to push me over the edge. I needed distance, and the avelyn really helped with that. The battle I finally beat Darklurker I didn't take my sword out once, which must be a first for me, for a non-magic build. I kept my distance, shot fire bolts (the avelyn shoots three in quick succession) until Darklurker split, then I exhausted all my pyromancy spells (which all told was only 6). After that, it was just about being very careful, shooting one of them when I had a chance. The avelyn is dangerous, because after you shoot, you can't roll, and you walk very slowly, for close to a second. You're VERY vulnerable. Through determination, attrition, and that trusty avelyn, I beat Darklurker, and my final boss of my first playthrough of Dark Souls II.
    Sorry for the lack of (good) pictures with this very lengthy post. I couldn't afford to get killed taking pictures in this battle. The battle was tense enough. This is a great one though. It makes up for a few of the easy bosses, for sure. His design is really great, and the whole dark environment was overall fabulous. Tedious to fight him over and over again, but I'm very glad I persevered and beat him. So y'all in NG+! 

Times I died: 12
Difficulty: 9/10
Rating: 9/10

So, what's next? Well, I have ideas for two more non-boss-specific posts (an overview of the bosses here, and a ranking of all the bosses throughout all the games and DLC), then I'm going to make a NG+ boss update blog. I'm going to do all updates in this one post, because some bosses I'll either write very little, or write quite a bit. I don't want entire posts dedicated to three sentences. So, ladies and gents, thanks for joining me in this crazy journey. I plan on doing boss posts for different games, so stayed tuned! Smooches!

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BOSS SOUL DESCRIPTION: "Soul of what lurks in the Dark Chasm; The Dark Chasm of Old is the remnant of some ancient, dissipated being."