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?
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| 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).
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| Slashing upwards |
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| 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.
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| Uuuuuuuggggghhhh |
Times I died: 58
Difficulty: 9.8/10
Rating: 9/10
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