I think you have a fair take. The soul of cinder is a really fun boss and is kinda cool as an end to the series rather than just 3 (despite Gael being better version of this in dlc). But you're right that it does have no real buildup besides the cover art, but that doesn't really count.
Don't doubt yourself ,Your video was informative well executed and brilliantly put together. Keep doing you and you will be the next vaatividya i'm sure of it.
Awesome video!! I personally think soul of cinder is a good final boss, the lack of build up helps him just be a complete shock, and the omage to the players, especially those that played all of them is a very sentimental end to the trilogy
Great video once again! I personally think 2 is the best built up as well as the best in execution, i really like the sighting of seeing vendrick right after veldstat.
Nice vid mate, you're not wrong at all here but personally I think the Gwyn phase is good, nostalgia bait or not it still lands for me; also while one's first encounter with SoC comes out of nowhere I definitely develop a much better appreciation for it's lore once i realized that it's all the perpetuators of the age of fire. Nashandra definitely has the best buildup imo too.
Good video, i agree that lore wise you are 100% correct, but at the same time if the end boss is nothing but a disappointment mechanically then that can really take away from the boss fight. Thats why I prefer Soul of Cinder over Nashandra and Gwyn.
A very nice take, breakdown and explanation of the idea abd topic. I will admit tho, there was a missed opportunity here with gael. As I and my friends have viewed it, he's a final boss as well. Not just for a game, or the dlc, but for the franchise as a whole. And honestly, I feel like he hits all of these beats you layed out perfectly. He has build up across two dlc, character interaction, npc and lore mentions, he has possibly one of my favourite walks and boss intro's of any of them, and his fight. Good lord do I love fighting him. Gael is, quite possibly, one of the quintessential final bosses of any series. Gosh this was a big comment, apologies. I hope you understand my point tho, and again this was a great video as well
i personally would disagree with a lot of the points in the video but it's still a really well-made and enjoyable one with a lot of really interesting points made!! :3
I agree with you 100%. SoC may be the best boss mechanically but it doesn't have that feeling the other 2 do. Gwyn, Nashandra, and True King Allant all have their stories gradually reveled throughout the game. It feels like you've completed your journey when they fall, but SoC just feels like a hard boss to give a challenge at the end of the game. If they would have subtlety built up the idea that the pieces of everyone who has linked the flame is growing in the kiln it would have been a bit better imo. You're so right about the lack of any real runback not giving that moment of reflection, I always felt that way but never knew what it was until watching your video.
Something that has been built up since the first Dark Souls (or have been heavily implied I can't remember it well) is how Gwyn wasn't supposed to link the fire and did it for the sole purpose of extending his reign of Light because he feared the ability of mankind to actually prosper in the Dark His solution of using himself as kindling interupted the natural cycle of the flame fading out and incited his followers to do the same for the longest time Maybe the Soul of Cinder is an avatar of the First Flame whose only desire is to finally die out after living for way longer than it should have, a being made up from the ashes of powerful ancient warriors built to fend off every new soul trying to extand it's life It's either the biggest buildup, going through the entire series, or the worst of Dark Souls 3, up to interpretation I think
Ooh, a hot take saying soul of cinder is the worst, but I definitely get where you are coming from since they are not built up at all and I appreciate seeing an uncommon take. For my personal interpretation, I see soul of cinder as a mindless husk filled with all those who have linked the flame in the past that may not realize what it is even doing anymore, or maybe on some deeper level it even wants to stop you from linking the flame so the cycle can finally end. I dunno if that interpretation lines up with the lore at all but that's how I've always thought about it.
as someone who started the series at ds3, i do think the soul of cinder felt out of place even in my first playthrough, and ever since i heard about the sulyvahn trivia, i wanted to see a version of the story that actually did something with him
I honestly think SoC is a great final boss. I love how it twists the finale where instead of the struggle being over for you, you face (lore wise) the toughest challenge yet. Not to mention how depending on your ending option, your values can completely rival everything the SoC protects against, which of course justifies the SoC’s purpose. To some, it’s better the flame die with a guardian than fall into the hands of an abyssal being.
Great video, although I really don't agree with your final conclusion Talking about my personal experience with DS3, defeating all the lords and eventually facing Lothric was extremely satisfactory. From the very start of the game, you know your main objective and you stay true to it, but the more lords you defeat, the more you understand about this dying world. By reaching the Klin of The First Flame, the very idea that I was in some type of fundamental place of the world and about to directly affect the first flame was already a great payoff in its own merit, but actually seeing the Soul of Cinder was truly the perfect climax for me. At first, it seemed like such a random fight, what is this random dude even doing in this place? Then you slowly start to notice something odd about his moveset, until the realisation comes and you realise you're basically fighting yourself. It's as if every iteration of the hero you've played as before is now trying to resist, which for me is an amazing summary of how DS3 deals with the morality of the linking of the first flame. The fact that his second stage alludes to the Gwyn boss fight is even better. For me, it never felt like a nostalgia bait, but rather a feeling of coming full cycle. Here, in the last chapter of the story, your last adversary is resorting to the full power of the adversary you've faced all the way back in DS1. I know every person is going to have their own personal experience, but for me, having no build-up to the fight with SoC and just understanding its purpose by context alone was such a cathartic moment of the series.
i think that you make a very fair point in that the earlier games had better build up, but i think that if there was no final obstacle in the way to linking the fire than lothric could have done it. i know this is kinda vague but what im trying to say is that there needs to be a test of strength, something lothric didnt have, to prevent his linking of the flame. the lack of a walk to the final bossfight is also a testament of how the previous linker of the flame did not have a change of guard, and it has been too long so no followers remain.
I think SoC is there as a final test. It’s there to defend the flame but it’s also there to see whether or not you’re actually strong enough to link it, if that’s your intention, which is why it’s there. If you can’t defeat the SoC then you aren’t powerful enough to be used as fuel to rekindle it.
I think the soul of cinder would've had a great build up if it was mentioned at the beginning and only the beginning. it would make you wonder what it was and why nobody is talking about it.
The thing is, I think youre misreading the soul of cinder here. He is not meant as a final boss of this game per-se. The other two games were largely stand-alone, and were building on their own. This game is the conclusion of the trilogy, and wouldnt work without the other two. As such, the soul of cinder is the final fight of the series. He represents the cursed cycle of linking the fire, while at the same time representing its greatest champion, the chosen undead (who I am convinced is meant to be the soul of cinder). So killing it is putting an end to the very nature of the flame, which needed to die, so that the world may move on. And what the protector of the flame means, is really just that the flame (or rather the world, as Gwyn changed the logic of the world so that it would be oriented towards flame, which was the first sin) needed to test if the individual is strong enough. Bechause thats what linking the fire is all about. Strengh, might.
I'm surprised at how softly you tackled SoC being the worst because it's so aggressively the worst lol. It horribly fails at everything that makes a good final boss, let alone a good boss itself. You barely talked about the fight itself, which I'd argue is the worst part about it. If it's an act of desperation, why is it so much stronger than those who defended and coveted the flame before? Why can it spam the charge into spin combo?
I mainly wanted to talk about the lore itself and how they aee brought up. I also don't really have any issues with the fight itself tbh its just fine for me
Soul of Cinder is FAR from the worst boss. It’s easily my favorite and I started with DS1. It has such badass lore and an even better fight! You’re fighting the souls of all cinder lords
@@WhoDaF0ok1sThatGuy Yeah, that's the problem. It shouldn't be badass, Gwyn wasn't and he's easily the my favorite final boss because of that. Nashandra isn't grand and epic, she's pathetic and incapable. That's what makes the fights so meaningful, you're quenching the lives of these sad beings that can't possibly do good anymore. The soul of cinder, on the other hand, is just kind of... powerful, I guess? Like, cool, sure, it's the final boss, but why should I care? I only want to beat it to get to the end of the game. It's not some narrative climax or intense emotional moment, it's just "boss... okay, kill." It's also easily the worst of the fights, imo. All the movesets are pretty bad, from the homing soul mass status effect to the charge spam, and the Gwyn phase is pretty bad, too. Combos that only serve to waste your time, lightning throws that you have to trial and error to learn to dodge, random AoEs out of nowhere, it's not a great fight. At least, I don't have fun with it at all.
@@solarpellets pretty much everyone in the souls community agrees it’s a phenomenally crafted fight. If you don’t like it then that’s on you. People who couldn’t enjoy Isshin would call his moveset unfair and slander him even though he’s clearly an amazing fight. A final boss isn’t supposed to be “I just want to finish this”. Especially when it’s a series finale. It’s supposed to be “this decides what happens to the world” just like how the fight with Gael is.
@@WhoDaF0ok1sThatGuy That's exactly not what the SoC is, that was my point. Also, a lot of people, pretty much everyone who doesn't think DS3 is the best one which is quite a few people, thinks SoC isn't exactly "phenomenal"
it maybe like in dark souls a finel test to see if you hav wet it takes to link the first flame think on it the lord fo sun light and fier was the finle thing one fascsis in dark souls its juts and ied from one hows in the way fo wite this has ben omage apalth hav a nices day
I feel like Gwyn would have had a better build up for me if I didn't stop to farm the black knights near the end of the game lol. That, and if I didn't leave to learn parrying on basic hollows at Firelink (because I heard parrying was good against the boss). Of course, who knows how I'd feel if I bothered to play games normally. Oh well.
Build up is NOTHING. Gameplay -- is what determines good final boss for me: Armstrong had little to no build up -- amazing final boss; Gwyn may had a good build up, but turned out a let down. HALO 4 there was a build up for a final boss through out the game... scratch that, every HALO game had that, build up as something epic to be a total let down from gameplay perspective; yet something like CLASH: The Artifact of Chaos or Dark Souls 3 -- great! But then ANY of JRPG bosses -- boooooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiing. There are not many games that has build up and gameplay combined in a great climax -- Turbo Overkill does it well from the top of my mind.
I think you have a fair take.
The soul of cinder is a really fun boss and is kinda cool as an end to the series rather than just 3 (despite Gael being better version of this in dlc). But you're right that it does have no real buildup besides the cover art, but that doesn't really count.
I think the flame can only be kindled by someone very strong, so the Soul of Cinder is meant to be a test of strength, not just a guard.
Don't doubt yourself ,Your video was informative well executed and brilliantly put together. Keep doing you and you will be the next vaatividya i'm sure of it.
Awesome video!! I personally think soul of cinder is a good final boss, the lack of build up helps him just be a complete shock, and the omage to the players, especially those that played all of them is a very sentimental end to the trilogy
Great video once again! I personally think 2 is the best built up as well as the best in execution, i really like the sighting of seeing vendrick right after veldstat.
Nice vid mate, you're not wrong at all here but personally I think the Gwyn phase is good, nostalgia bait or not it still lands for me; also while one's first encounter with SoC comes out of nowhere I definitely develop a much better appreciation for it's lore once i realized that it's all the perpetuators of the age of fire. Nashandra definitely has the best buildup imo too.
Good video, i agree that lore wise you are 100% correct, but at the same time if the end boss is nothing but a disappointment mechanically then that can really take away from the boss fight. Thats why I prefer Soul of Cinder over Nashandra and Gwyn.
A very nice take, breakdown and explanation of the idea abd topic. I will admit tho, there was a missed opportunity here with gael. As I and my friends have viewed it, he's a final boss as well. Not just for a game, or the dlc, but for the franchise as a whole. And honestly, I feel like he hits all of these beats you layed out perfectly. He has build up across two dlc, character interaction, npc and lore mentions, he has possibly one of my favourite walks and boss intro's of any of them, and his fight. Good lord do I love fighting him. Gael is, quite possibly, one of the quintessential final bosses of any series.
Gosh this was a big comment, apologies. I hope you understand my point tho, and again this was a great video as well
i personally would disagree with a lot of the points in the video but it's still a really well-made and enjoyable one with a lot of really interesting points made!! :3
I agree with you 100%. SoC may be the best boss mechanically but it doesn't have that feeling the other 2 do. Gwyn, Nashandra, and True King Allant all have their stories gradually reveled throughout the game. It feels like you've completed your journey when they fall, but SoC just feels like a hard boss to give a challenge at the end of the game. If they would have subtlety built up the idea that the pieces of everyone who has linked the flame is growing in the kiln it would have been a bit better imo. You're so right about the lack of any real runback not giving that moment of reflection, I always felt that way but never knew what it was until watching your video.
Something that has been built up since the first Dark Souls (or have been heavily implied I can't remember it well) is how Gwyn wasn't supposed to link the fire and did it for the sole purpose of extending his reign of Light because he feared the ability of mankind to actually prosper in the Dark
His solution of using himself as kindling interupted the natural cycle of the flame fading out and incited his followers to do the same for the longest time
Maybe the Soul of Cinder is an avatar of the First Flame whose only desire is to finally die out after living for way longer than it should have, a being made up from the ashes of powerful ancient warriors built to fend off every new soul trying to extand it's life
It's either the biggest buildup, going through the entire series, or the worst of Dark Souls 3, up to interpretation I think
My gay lover has told me to subscribe while sending this to me, I shall watch this now. Thank you Mario
me, i did this
That is true
No than you
Ooh, a hot take saying soul of cinder is the worst, but I definitely get where you are coming from since they are not built up at all and I appreciate seeing an uncommon take. For my personal interpretation, I see soul of cinder as a mindless husk filled with all those who have linked the flame in the past that may not realize what it is even doing anymore, or maybe on some deeper level it even wants to stop you from linking the flame so the cycle can finally end. I dunno if that interpretation lines up with the lore at all but that's how I've always thought about it.
as someone who started the series at ds3, i do think the soul of cinder felt out of place even in my first playthrough, and ever since i heard about the sulyvahn trivia, i wanted to see a version of the story that actually did something with him
I honestly think SoC is a great final boss. I love how it twists the finale where instead of the struggle being over for you, you face (lore wise) the toughest challenge yet. Not to mention how depending on your ending option, your values can completely rival everything the SoC protects against, which of course justifies the SoC’s purpose. To some, it’s better the flame die with a guardian than fall into the hands of an abyssal being.
Glad to see people still make videos about Dark Souls, keep up the good work man I enjoyed this video
I completely agree. As much fun as soul of cinder is to fight, he might as well just not exist from the story angle.
Great video, although I really don't agree with your final conclusion
Talking about my personal experience with DS3, defeating all the lords and eventually facing Lothric was extremely satisfactory. From the very start of the game, you know your main objective and you stay true to it, but the more lords you defeat, the more you understand about this dying world.
By reaching the Klin of The First Flame, the very idea that I was in some type of fundamental place of the world and about to directly affect the first flame was already a great payoff in its own merit, but actually seeing the Soul of Cinder was truly the perfect climax for me. At first, it seemed like such a random fight, what is this random dude even doing in this place? Then you slowly start to notice something odd about his moveset, until the realisation comes and you realise you're basically fighting yourself. It's as if every iteration of the hero you've played as before is now trying to resist, which for me is an amazing summary of how DS3 deals with the morality of the linking of the first flame.
The fact that his second stage alludes to the Gwyn boss fight is even better. For me, it never felt like a nostalgia bait, but rather a feeling of coming full cycle. Here, in the last chapter of the story, your last adversary is resorting to the full power of the adversary you've faced all the way back in DS1.
I know every person is going to have their own personal experience, but for me, having no build-up to the fight with SoC and just understanding its purpose by context alone was such a cathartic moment of the series.
blahaj ate the video oopsies >w
So silly
Youre the best .
Plss include bloodbotne and sekiro
i think that you make a very fair point in that the earlier games had better build up, but i think that if there was no final obstacle in the way to linking the fire than lothric could have done it. i know this is kinda vague but what im trying to say is that there needs to be a test of strength, something lothric didnt have, to prevent his linking of the flame. the lack of a walk to the final bossfight is also a testament of how the previous linker of the flame did not have a change of guard, and it has been too long so no followers remain.
I think SoC is there as a final test. It’s there to defend the flame but it’s also there to see whether or not you’re actually strong enough to link it, if that’s your intention, which is why it’s there. If you can’t defeat the SoC then you aren’t powerful enough to be used as fuel to rekindle it.
Can you do lies of p
Get out
This was a really good video. You certainly deserve more attention.
Tysm!
I think the soul of cinder would've had a great build up if it was mentioned at the beginning and only the beginning. it would make you wonder what it was and why nobody is talking about it.
amazing video :)
what about aldia?
The thing is, I think youre misreading the soul of cinder here. He is not meant as a final boss of this game per-se. The other two games were largely stand-alone, and were building on their own. This game is the conclusion of the trilogy, and wouldnt work without the other two. As such, the soul of cinder is the final fight of the series. He represents the cursed cycle of linking the fire, while at the same time representing its greatest champion, the chosen undead (who I am convinced is meant to be the soul of cinder). So killing it is putting an end to the very nature of the flame, which needed to die, so that the world may move on. And what the protector of the flame means, is really just that the flame (or rather the world, as Gwyn changed the logic of the world so that it would be oriented towards flame, which was the first sin) needed to test if the individual is strong enough. Bechause thats what linking the fire is all about. Strengh, might.
love the channel
i like the soul of cinder but gael is just better in like every aspect
Can you do this with bloodborne and sekiro too?
Awesome 👌👍
I'm surprised at how softly you tackled SoC being the worst because it's so aggressively the worst lol. It horribly fails at everything that makes a good final boss, let alone a good boss itself. You barely talked about the fight itself, which I'd argue is the worst part about it. If it's an act of desperation, why is it so much stronger than those who defended and coveted the flame before? Why can it spam the charge into spin combo?
I mainly wanted to talk about the lore itself and how they aee brought up. I also don't really have any issues with the fight itself tbh its just fine for me
Soul of Cinder is FAR from the worst boss. It’s easily my favorite and I started with DS1. It has such badass lore and an even better fight! You’re fighting the souls of all cinder lords
@@WhoDaF0ok1sThatGuy Yeah, that's the problem. It shouldn't be badass, Gwyn wasn't and he's easily the my favorite final boss because of that. Nashandra isn't grand and epic, she's pathetic and incapable. That's what makes the fights so meaningful, you're quenching the lives of these sad beings that can't possibly do good anymore. The soul of cinder, on the other hand, is just kind of... powerful, I guess? Like, cool, sure, it's the final boss, but why should I care? I only want to beat it to get to the end of the game. It's not some narrative climax or intense emotional moment, it's just "boss... okay, kill." It's also easily the worst of the fights, imo. All the movesets are pretty bad, from the homing soul mass status effect to the charge spam, and the Gwyn phase is pretty bad, too. Combos that only serve to waste your time, lightning throws that you have to trial and error to learn to dodge, random AoEs out of nowhere, it's not a great fight. At least, I don't have fun with it at all.
@@solarpellets pretty much everyone in the souls community agrees it’s a phenomenally crafted fight. If you don’t like it then that’s on you. People who couldn’t enjoy Isshin would call his moveset unfair and slander him even though he’s clearly an amazing fight. A final boss isn’t supposed to be “I just want to finish this”. Especially when it’s a series finale. It’s supposed to be “this decides what happens to the world” just like how the fight with Gael is.
@@WhoDaF0ok1sThatGuy That's exactly not what the SoC is, that was my point. Also, a lot of people, pretty much everyone who doesn't think DS3 is the best one which is quite a few people, thinks SoC isn't exactly "phenomenal"
:3
it maybe like in dark souls a finel test to see if you hav wet it takes to link the first flame think on it the lord fo sun light and fier was the finle thing one fascsis in dark souls its juts and ied from one hows in the way fo wite this has ben omage apalth hav a nices day
A Dark soul.... something you CANT change since you birth
☝🤓
I feel like Gwyn would have had a better build up for me if I didn't stop to farm the black knights near the end of the game lol. That, and if I didn't leave to learn parrying on basic hollows at Firelink (because I heard parrying was good against the boss). Of course, who knows how I'd feel if I bothered to play games normally. Oh well.
Build up is NOTHING. Gameplay -- is what determines good final boss for me: Armstrong had little to no build up -- amazing final boss; Gwyn may had a good build up, but turned out a let down. HALO 4 there was a build up for a final boss through out the game... scratch that, every HALO game had that, build up as something epic to be a total let down from gameplay perspective; yet something like CLASH: The Artifact of Chaos or Dark Souls 3 -- great! But then ANY of JRPG bosses -- boooooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiing. There are not many games that has build up and gameplay combined in a great climax -- Turbo Overkill does it well from the top of my mind.