As a lore aside, Gael consumes the blood because the blood had dried. It couldn’t be used as pigment in that form, so he consumed it so that his body could turn it into liquid blood. However, by the time the player arrives, he’s overcome with the desire to consume it all instead of acting rationally as it has almost entirely turned him insane. All that’s left is the desire for the Dark Soul
@@noravanguard I strongly disagree with that. Gael led you through both the Painted World and Ringed City DLCs because him being driven insane by his search for the Pygmy Lords was all part of his plan from the very start when you meet him in the Cleansing Chaspel. He led you to his future self after he digested the dried blood of the Pygmy Lords so you two could clash and he could spill blood, now the Blood of the Dark Soul. From the very start he knew he would never make it and he would have to be killed by you so you could harvest the Blood of the Dark Soul from him and give it to his lady. He died as his former master Gwyn's worst nightmare come true, and as a free Man who gave himself to a cause he believed in.
Something to note with Gael is that the lightning isn’t quite random, but is directly tied to the red Rancors from his cape. Whenever he explodes and releases the rancors, wherever they land is where the lightning will strike, and the lightning can hurt Gael. So you can use it to your advantage. Pay attention to where the skulls land, bait Gael into their range, and roll into/around a safe spot.
@@Sir-Pleiades that’s probably because the lightning is capable of hurting him. Interesting choice on the devs part, but it just adds to the fight in my opinion.
@@Sir-Pleiades His own lightning from the cape red rancors that spawns. There is random lightning around that does even more but the chance of it hitting him is extremely slim.
Lorewise, Farron Keep is actually Ollacille (can’t spell) from ds1, the place you get to fight manus and artorias. The poison swamp makes sense lore wise since poison swamps usually follow with the abyss. If anyone’s wondering how you figure that out, dusks gear is found in the swamp, the mushrooms from ds1 are found in a cave and white birch trees are found in the swamp.
Farron Keep being Oolacile explains why those weird ape swamp enemies that eat your face off exist, since they are probably decedents of the enemies we fought in Oolacile previously.
@@feebleking21 there are so many references to Farron Keep being Oolacile that i'm surprised that your first choice was to compare it to Blighttown just because of the poison swamp. The section with the dead mushroom enemies, the Crown of Dusk, the golden scroll, and even the fact that the abyss watchers pretty much have the remains of the soul of artorias are just some to name
one of my facourite things about Gael fight is that in third phase is that if you run away from him a bit too far, he will shorten the distance by literally placing a summoning sign under you and summon himself there
@@jurivjerdha2467I men’s he has been alive since the war against dragons all the way to the end of time getting to the dark soul the long way, I’m sure anyone would figure out travel between worlds by force within those thousands of years
I read Gael as a dark[er] mirror of the player. He set out to create his own promised land, but after millenia of killing and consuming souls he forgets why he is doing what he's doing and just becomes a monster of mindless consumption. That's what makes that final battle such an amazing conclusion to the series - two chosen undead fighting to the death at the end of time in the ruins of the world for a purpose neither really know or understand.
@@_Tzer for some paint that will create a new world. Gael knew he would end up like this and guided the player to him in order to kill him and take the paint. It is the most important item for this doomed world
@@_Tzer 2 idiots with a lot of luck that the world has not killed them, so yeah, 2 nobodies who wanted a better world, one forgotten of his adventure and the other going basically tru the same thing
This comment doesn't make sense. Gael knows exactly what he is fighting for, the dark soul to use as pigment for his lady's painting. He still remembers it when he was fighting you. He only goes hollow once he realizes his mission is fulfilled, and leaves it up to you to deliver the pigment. So both participant in this fight has a purpose. Whether your character realizes it or not is up to you, but Gael absolutely knows what he's doing.
"two chosen undead fighting to the death at the end of time in the ruins of the world for a purpose neither really know or understand." False, I fight Gael simply because of that OST, skill-building, and because it's cool
Agility gear exists tho, and its plenty of them actually. Full set, ring, crown, weapon. Anyway ds2 is an easy walk before Glass Knight. His attacks requires agility or incredibly good spacing.
Currently on my ds2 sl1 CoC run right now. With agility gear, i-frames aren't that terrible. And ds2 sl1 has wider weapon options compared to ds1 and ds3 (great club is usable in ds2 sl1).
Hey there! When it comes to the Demon Prince slam attack, you can just walk backwards (not run, walk as he flies upwards) and when he slams just dodge backwards. For me it works 100% of the time Edit: When it comes to Gael consuming the Dark Soul, he did it because when he reached the pigmy lords he saw that their blood had been dry for a long time. It wasn't suitable for turning it into paint so he consumed the Dark Soul in order for his blood to "liquify" it
37:57 Gwyn was already stuck guarding the flame by the time his son was striped of his title. We know, because the son left his weapon on Gwyn's coffin at the castle.
Huh. I didn't know that little tidbit. What was his weapon before he left for Archdragon Peak? His current one is the Dragonslayer Sword-Spear, a prototype to the Dragonslayer's Spear wielded by Ornstein
@CrimZon Pegasus you know that all ornsteins we fought in DS1 DS2 and empty armors in DS3 were illusions and fanboys (like Abyss Watchers or Havel Knights) and real one went on a journey to find nameless king probably becoming a dragon - either the one the nameless king rides, the ancient wyvern or meditating one. During development they even planned to make him a boss fight in giant tree arena below the alter overlooking the giant archdragon - that's why you find his armor there. Imagine fighting real ornstein half turned into a dragon.
@@crimzonpegasus9714 the sunlight blade miracle. The description specifically says that the nameless king left this miracle on his father's grave when he left Anor Londo
If you find Wolnir disappointing, try killing him without damaging his bracelets next time. It is not only doable, but gives you a unique death animation for him as well
Sometimes I just forgot the main topic of this video while watching it. This honestly just felt like a review of the game talking about the mechanics and level design in constructive and concise detail. This is incredible.
dancer has a lot of openings during her whirly attacks where you can stand and she'll wiff multiple in a row with a good timed roll. the endurance shouldn't be a problem. but I also like how this shows you discovered your own strategies and not just look up ultra pro dark souls guy level 1 run videos lol. she's actually one of my favorite bosses in the game.
They really went above and beyond for no reason with Dancer as most properly leveled people can totally skip phase 2. It's a fun fight on challenge runs though
I think the most creative part of DS3 is its lore, ironically. Thematically it concludes everything beautifully imo. It's all reaching natural conclusions, the different areas of the lore
Ironically? What's ironic about it? In any case I'm torn between agreeing and being frustrated at the extent to which bad translation has rendered it incoherent. There's seemingly a LOT of nuanced ideas that were lost in translation that would have gone a long ways towards smoothing over the feeling that DS3 pretty much retcons DS1's "laws of the universe". It's been argued that the Big Crunch has something to do with it but that's sort of a lazy answer. Who are you? Ya made of ash, dingus (what? No seriously, what ARE you?) The embers of bonfires make you... better somehow (again, what?) The Darksign no longer has much to do with hollowing specifically any more, in your case as a weird ash golem thing, you get your own version of the Curse. (actually a new thought for me which makes this make *slightly* more sense) Instead, the Dark Sigil is related to *hollowing* and the Undead specifically. Whcih sure, it's the thing we've seen on the body of Undead before, but how are you, a pile of ash, able to get it again and start hollowing again? Oh boy, double-curse! And why don't you start needing *humanity* again? There's a nation of intelligent hollows (bullshit, half of "being hollow" is that no soul = no sanity) Aaand then there's the rest of it, compared to DS1 the motivations & actions of all the major players don't really *fit together* so much as they're just... a series of things that happened.
I see so few people bring up how it's clearly established by the game that the land of Lothric has some special force slowly pulling other distant lands towards it eventually smashing them all together until it's nothing but ash and dust remaining. this is such a cool detail to me that the game really drives home a lot but also could have explored a lot more like the dreg heap you see at the end of the game and get to play in the DLC is not just a creative idea they did cause they could and it's cool to have nostalgia... they actually built up to it with the lore and worldbuilding it's why there is so much familiar in the game entwined with the new and why it's so apocalyptic feeling. i get if people don't enjoy how derivative DS3 can feel but that derivative nature is core to it's storytelling and worldbuilding pretty much everything revolves around this being the twisted remains of what we saw in the previous games, before our eyes being ground down into nothing... it's so tragic and heartbreaking when you look at it this way and ties into that theme of not wanting to let go of the past... the message of the game with Lothric is that you have to move on cause the world doesn't wait for you to move on and if you keep dwelling on the past you will just end up caught inbetween the old world and new one this is basically what happened to gael it's all because of the lore point that these are the end times for the whole world of Dark Souls and the way it's manifesting is this final kingdom of Lothric basically is a magnetic force pulling in any other kingdoms that have been influenced by the struggle between age of fire and darkness to finally end it all this makes gael even more of a tragic character because he really is just fighting against the end times for the world he has always known, if he can't have his world stay in tact he will just make a new one by any means necessary and what we see when we touch Fillianore's egg is the very end results of what's happening in Lothric with the phenomena of pulling in distant lands... everything is just ground down to ash & dust, barely any remnants of the kingdoms that once remained just an endless wasteland that's beautiful in it's own way This lore point is so cool and interesting to me it makes me also wish they did more with it and I see a lot of missed potential in the game, really wish Dreg Heap was a much more expanded area with more intertwining aspects of the previous games being smooshed together into this twisted destroyed amalgamation, it's such an inspired and creative idea
Seriously? DS3's story is literally the exact same from DS1, oh the fire is fading let's decide if we want link it or not. At least DS2 tried to tell a different story about the first sin and such
100%. The same problem is almost non-existent in Elden Ring because ashes of war and magic were all actually really good and useful for 99% of builds. I never ran full estus in Elden Ring, but I nearly always did in DS3, especially at sl1.
The complaint with bosses also makes me wonder if I'm the only person who hardly ever runs out of estus on a boss. I almost always either kill the boss without having to use too many flasks, or I die from mistakes I make before I can run out of estus. Outside of early game, especially ds 2, it's rare for me to actually run out of estus. (Though ds 2 also has life gems in its equasion.)
@@MalzraAirwynnIn Ds2 Estus is so slow that i always take 2 instead of 1 because getting hit is almost guaranteed even if you baited long recovery attacks. Yet never ran out of because of lifegems being so broken
@@anstorner 2, especially early on, is reallly the exception since you start out with what, one use of it? And yeah it's slow especially early on. Until you get enough bone shards to have a decent number and enough adaptability to make your drinking faster. I still died a fair amount in 2 even with life gems, though I also did high speed low armor builds, and the slow healing of life gems wasn't always enough if I was hit again before recovering.
Farron Keep isn’t actually Blighttown, given Elizabeth’s presence as a corpse it’s actually Darkroot Garden- unless it’s actually both / merged… which is actually viable given their proximity (with erosion just having them fall into one another)
Unlikely to be both, as Sen's, Firelink, Parish, and Burg would have to all fall into Blighttown for Darkroot to fall into Blighttown, as they're all in between the two, which are on opposite points of the triangle they form with the Archives/Crystal Cave. Darkroot is closer to Kiln and Anor Londo. No clue how it became the anywhere close to the height Farron is, as the keep is ~level with Anor Londo...
Soul of cinder first phase is one of my favourite designs even in DS3 tbh. One thing nobody seems to catch is that 3 of the 4 phase one movesets (which is already crazy it has so much variety) have their own unique buffs that linger through whenever he swaps movesets. The pyro curved sword has lingering power within, the miracle and spear user has a heal over time and the mage has a permanently respawning crystal soulmass and the difficulty of these is also balanced with power withing being basically meh, heal over time being annoying but not much more and the soulmass being the only one that actually changes how the fight plays out since it's attached to the comparably weak sorcerer moveset. Oh and I personally like to fight the sword moveset the most, it has annoying delayed attacks sure but hey, it's almost like you have to learn how to avoid certain attacks in Dark Souls what a shocker. Edit: Forgot to mention, loved the video great job.
Pontiff was the only boss I struggled with and actually hated to fight in my first run of DS3, and I think your comparisons to Elden ring with him really make it clear why I didnt like a lot of those bosses
@@maroonring that’s definitely fair enough. I somewhat recently have been replaying DS3 and after playing Elden ring, I found he was MUCH easier to manage. I’m hoping with my insights from a first play through, when I get around to a second Elden ring run I’ll share your opinion :)
@@EJB9 I personally feel like most of the Dark Souls 3 bosses are a bit too easy. It's just roll and backtrack to win, that's why I love Elden Ring bosses who punish roll spamming and backtracking, forcing you to play to aggressively. Perfectly timing rolls through a barage of attacks and hitting at the tiniest of inetrvals while staying in the boss's face just feels so exhilarating.
@@sassas1487i feel the issue with margit/morgott is that it feels like he’s in control. It’s not a boss fight, it’s just waiting for margit to stop his stunlocking temper tantrum to have one opportunity to beat him over the head with a stick. Malenia on the other hand is just a fucking pain. Her insta activating hyper armor and just blatant ignorance of game mechanics is bs.
I like how even something as difficult as a SL1 run has options to make the game easier. Using the profaned UGS for human sized enemies, parrying bosses like pontif and Gundry, poisoning bosses like Gael and Demon King. There are so many options to make these games easier even without leaving, it's very impressive game design.
I feel justified in having Champion Gundyr and Pontiff Sulyvahn as my favorite bosses in the series now! Also I think I'm finally going to commit to A SL1 run
I enjoyed my lvl1 run so much. Being forced to actually study the bosses and formulate counter strategies was so satisfying. The fight against Gael started to feel like a dance, and when I was 1 hit away from killing him, I lost on purpose so I could do it again and back up my save file so I'd always be able to repeat the fight. I made it an additional challenge by restricting my weapons and armor to the starting class gear, only changing rings and equipment, and not using estus flasks. Crystal Sage was surprisingly challenging, I overcame it by buying throwing knives to kill the clones from a distance. There's something that makes the deacons of the deep fight way easier. Transpose Vordt's soul into the Pontiff's eye ring, which heals you with repeated hits. If you hit many hits within a few seconds, you get an ungodly amount of healing from it. With the swarm of deacons this becomes very easy, especially if you're dual wielding sellswords. Aldrich was a pain in the ass because of the homing projectiles spam, with me not using estus. I even refused to equip the stormbringer, instead having onion bro deal the damage while I was doing my best to keep aggro.
Your idea of a dark dimension is so creative, they could even include ruined versions of areas from previous games too, like firelink shrine or anor londo. You should talk to someone from fromesoft about this
Gael is a legend . He went thro everything for an endless amount of time in order to archive his goal and find the pigment for the little girl who showed a little bit of kindness to him. He was a slave knight and always treated poorly. When he found the pygmy lords he went in shock that the blood had dried out. He knew the only way to recreate the blood was by absorbing it into his own blood. For it he needed the power of all the dark soul and to hunt down the pygmy lords for eternity. He knew that even if he succeeded the dark soul would set him insane and he wouldn’t be able to deliver it to the girl. He was about to go hollow until he found us , that is why he is half insane at that state. He makes sure we make it to where he would be , at the end of the world . At first phase we see Gael in a corrupt state , like Artorias or the Abyss watchers. When we spill his blood and he sees that he had succeeded into recreating it and that we hold the power to fight him he goes hollow. His mission was over and he had no reason to keep fighting or living. Thats where we really fight the power of the dark soul at its peak..and honestly..its way scarier than what gwyn could ever put on when we fight him in the kiln of the first flame .
He actually turns hollow interestingly, dude managed to stay sane for thousands of years and managed to go between worlds without the need to be summoned
Midir is my favorite dragon fight in the entire series, but not because he is the hardest. because he is the *fairest*. Its a long, reasonable tough fight against a foe with lots of health who hits like a truck.... but every hit you take is your fault. It is, in my experience, completely fair whilst still being epic and thus I love it.
I disagree. I think his laser barrage in phase 2 is not something that you can reasonably dodge on your first time, and it one shots most character. The animation for when the laser comes towards you during the 4th and 6th "swing" of the barrage is too sudden for an attack that kills you instantly. Combined with his large hp pool, he can be very annoying to fight unless you look up the attack online. I can kill him reliably nowadays, but he was very aggravating on my first run of Ringed City. I still don't like fighting him, because he takes too long even with constant head attacks, and his attacks aren't very fun to avoid, since he has very little variation in his combos compared to human bosses.
I will say, after you fight him for a While, absolutely.. for the most part His laser that then explodes after a few moments has a really, really shoddy hitbox Along with how you get forced into DPS race near the very end But I will say, you are absolutely right!
calling midir is easy like in the video is just being a clown. He's is easy when you LEARN his entire moveset but that does not mean that he is suuuper easy like said in the video, he has that lazer, sometimes you have to fight the camera and still get a huge healthbar - health reduction and high damage. You will suffer before you learn to hit the head and learn his moveset as well as dodge his godzillal lazer. He is 100% of the game strongest bosses.
I love the rykard fight. It was the first fight in Eldon ring that made me play the boss like it was dark souls 1. They make it easy enough with the serpent slayer they give you but if you spam the attacks you're not going to get very far in the fight. I resorted to my four King strategy and put on full heavy armor and then used flame resistance and stayed underneath him
I think that Elden Ring adding combo extenders and combo branch’s is actually something that makes every boss more mechanically interesting and fun along with delayed attacks it forces you to master the moveset of the bosses I can see how some people would dislike that but it offers the most fun challenge.
I really like this video because it covers several different topics: you talk about your experience with a sl1 run, make a boss ranking and talk about game mechanics and other things, so it is like a semi-review of the game. Really well done.
Pontiff actually has very fixed combos but they only progress if you're in the correct position otherwise he stops his combo, turns and does another one or does one of his two side swipes (the fire sword has a followup, the magic sword might as well?). They also all look very similar which is probably why people think he has infinite combos at first. The openings are at the ends of these combos or sometimes when he doesn't continue a combo (ie turns, as you noticed).
I managed to do an sl1 run years ago but took a break for a while as I was stuck in soul of cinder. Ended up putting that playthrough in the back burner for a long time.. and a couple of months later my hard drive died. I've never had the drive to go back and attempt the playthrough again. Kudos for knocking it out, great video man
FINALLY! The long awaited return of the Feeble King! I swear i have a sixth sense for this things, just yesterday i came to see if there was any new video.
pontiff doesn't have unlimited combo extensions. he uses certain extensions depending on where you are to him(right side, left side) and in this vid you are fighting him chaotically so it might seem that he does a certain extension randomly but he is just responding to whatever you are doing. the easiest way to fight him is to constantly stay on his right side
One thing about the difficulty though is that it completely depends on the order you play these games in. Dark Souls 3 was my first souls game, so I was constantly running out of estus and the game felt challenging my whole way through on my first playthrough. However, when I went back and played dark souls 1, I found it too easy even without kindling (aside from a few parts like the dlc and anor Londo)
The order I went in was: BB, started it and got past Father Gascoin but then put it down, wasn't enjoying it. Elden Ring got me back into the series. Finished it. Replayed and finished BB. Then I did the Dark Souls trilogy in order, picking the Scholar version for DS2. I found DS 1 to honestly be the easiest of the lot. Not that I never died or anything. But none of the base game bosses took more than a few tries. And the only level that gave me too much trouble was Sen's Fortress. I still had a good number of deaths, but it wasn't until the DLC that DS 1 really got difficult for me. O&S took me three attempts. Nothing in the game was quiet as difficult as Friede or Nameless King for me. Personally between the three, DS 1 was the easiest. DS 2 had the hardest levels due to too much enemy spam in places, and DS 3 had the hardest and most fun bosses on average for me. I'm giving the vanilla DS 2 a go now and enjoying it a bit more than Scholar in the levels, but I think the bosses are still the same.
@@MalzraAirwynn i find it very interesting when people say that nameless is the hardest boss of ds3 or atleast close to that. i personally don't even think he's top 5
@@Omenify Different people have more or less difficulty I guess with different bosses I guess. Nameless King wasn't the hardest boss for me in DS 3, that was Friede, but he did take me the longest to beat among the base game bosses of DS 3.
@@MalzraAirwynn oh, yeah, i know that. its just that he objectively has a way simpler moveset than bosses like friede, soul of cinder, dancer, demon prince. only thing that really gives him difficulty is his hp and how hard he hits perhaps.
@@Omenify It's always interesting to see what bosses do or don't give people trouble. Dancer for example doesn't give me much trouble at all. Even play through to play through I can have different experiences if I'm in a funk or just in a stride when I hit a certain boss. For example first play through I smashed through crystal sage really quickly, but for some reason I died several times on my second play through, which I think was mostly down to just being in a bad mood and if I'd just stepped away and come back the next day probably would have beaten it easily again.
I feel like this makes the hawk ring very viable considering it lets you zoom further with binoculars and changes the arcs of certain throwables and decreases damage falloff for certain throwables(daggers iirc). Oh also crossbow damage is neato.
How did I not see this on my feed...I only saw this on my recommended feed, wow time to really ring that bell, will devour this video as soon as I get home
If you've played dark souls 3 PVP in undead matches, at level one and no upgrades, it's so funny to dual higher level players, because they get scaled down to you in so many weird ways.
Anyone else struggle so much first play through but now watch videos like this because you know how to kill these bosses better? Like standing behind Aldrich to avoid arrows, or the bell jump for Wyvern.
I liked being able to choose to stay in wall of lothric and grind the greataxe to fight the dancer with, it felt like being somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be and breaking the game in the best way. Level 1 was fun to have those limited amount of options and sometimes choosing different weapons or rings based on what you enjoyed most, or just rockin’ the broadsword. And it finally gave me the incentive to try out lighter load fashion souls since I never did mage builds. I think I stopped at the Midir dragon cuz I had spent like a week on it and barely got half his health down. But I did enjoy Gael, finding and mastering all his attack patterns and getting as perfect a run you can get is so satisfying. I’m honestly tempted to redownload the game and ng+ that character to see any increase in challenge
The comment you made about the friend that inspired your SL1 series made me chuckle, it’s almost comical how certain players can run through the whole game using strength weapons and not recognize the exponential difficulty change when you can trade damage with every enemy in the game haha good stuff man, this run seemed like a blast to pull off.
I find it funny how you say dark souls 3 isn’t creative but also constantly say how creative certain areas and bosses are. Dark souls 3 has the objectively the most creative bosses in the series and it’s not even close
@@markkeys1142yup. The only gimmick bosses done right imo are the twin princes since you have to actually attack the guy hanging on the back and not just mindlessly attack the teleporting one.
Once i saw your video about ds1 at level 1 I was inspired to do it, but I convinced myself to do ds3 first and oh boy, what a joy. Thanks for the suggestion. And wow, look at that, now we have a level 1 video about ds3. Great work, keep it up!
26:52 The thing with the dancer is that her attacks come on tempo. You can literally predict when she's gonna hit because this boss battle is an array of different combos and wait times, all sorted and placed to go with a certain tempo (it's been a long time since i've played but i think it was 3/4, like arrays of three pulsations and combos based on those arrays)
Dude what an amazing video. Great descriptions and explanations, nice humour and it's awesome that you're so open when talking about the bosses attacks/openings. I can't imagine how much time you spent on the game, but after all of that you're able to say 'maybe i missed something' instead of blaming the game. That's admirable. I recently started playing Elden Ring and had a though time with Margit's delays, so I died when you showed him when talking about Sulyvahn. Again, awesome work man
Sometimes I think the only thing they had to do to make DS3 link together (somewhat) is make a path that leads from Firelink to High Wall of Lothric, right?
only 16k views in 2 days? being a challenge run and a video essay all in one, this is highly underrated. though i do believe that this video will get the attention it so well deserves shortly
I really enjoy these videos and would look forward to a DS2 video in a similar vein. However... I think DS2 gets worse at SL1 (thanks ADP) but it actually gets better if played deathless and without bonfires (i.e. to get the 2 illusory rings)! This is because it makes lifegems make sense since you don't *also* have estus and you can't just always warp back to Majula and buy more. It also makes the world design being essentially 4 different straight lines before Drangleic a lot more interesting since often, the easiest way to return to Majula is to beat that "path" and use the special bonfire at the end to warp back. [Alternatively, since a deathless run can be pretty damn time consuming you could always just say no using bonfires to warp and I guess no suiciding to return to Majula lmao]
For Elden Ring you need to add a few more stipulations. First, no summons except for quest stuff. Second, you need to do the regions in order, especially with you not being allowed to get items from the next region until you complete whatever stuff you were going to do in the one you're on. Do all the stuff in Limgrave, then in Liurnia, then in Caelid (maybe leave Dragonbarrow for later to save your sanity), then Altus Plateau etc. Third, you can't use the horse to skip past combat encounters. Siofra River is quite a challenging area if you're forbidden the horse, an experience I'm glad I had. Bosses like dragons and Radahn are okay if you mainly use Torrent as a mobility tool or to dodge big attacks. So far I've beaten Radahn and boy that was an intense experience. Surprisingly, it was an amazing solo experience if you go in expecting an intense challenge. All of his moves are readable once you get the hang of the fight, once you get a route to get though the arrow phase with Torrent it becomes pretty consistent, and actual bullshit is quite rare (ground lightning AoE can kill you the moment they spawn if you're up close attacking him during certain combos, and he can do a one shot sword slam move if you're lingering close to him and he hasn't started a new combo. The latter is definitely hurt by the camera not showing you the windup, but towards the end of my fighting him I somehow gained an instinct that made me avoid it).
There's a lot of criticisms in this video that just don't make sense to me (like farron keep being blighttown?) But saying it's a negative for ds3 to have 15 estus charges while simultaneously praising ds1's 20 charges is really telling
I think the biggest issue with DS3's design is that Miazaki probably never wanted to make it. Despite them being well made and as gorgeous as can be, it misses that real enthusiasm for design the mad man has for his other games like Bloodborne.
@@feebleking21 Pontiff is fun until you kill him in a minute cause his healthbar is so tiny. and Rellana literally has more openings than Pontiff your SOTE video was so braindead man
I notice that you seem to be the type of person who learns boss fights through analyzing them, and I think that's interesting. You mentioned how Nameless King can never follow up on odd-number attack combos, but can on even ones, and how "any player should be able to learn this through observation," but I had no idea about that until you mentioned it, even as somebody who can hitless Nameless King with relative ease. As somebody who learned these fights with just practice and muscle memory, I think it's really cool hearing from somebody whose learning method is so different from my own.
I haven't played the dlc as a sl1, as my sl1 run was before they came out. Nameless King was my personal favorite fight in the base game and I nearly cried when I actually beat him. I also was doing a hitless rtsr build for that fight so I could take out the King of Storms quickly.
Your point on Pontiff "he does have openings you just have to find it" is the exact reason after trying no hit runs and RL1 runs in Elden Ring iv come to love the bosses so much more. Your point on Pontiff literally relates to all ER bosses. Even Morgott Malenia and Radagon (the ones everyone complain about) all have alot of openings you just have to find them and they arent obvious. Also HARD dissagree about Yhorm. Yhorm gives you the option to fight him without it cause you can get a stagger and the headshots do massive damage to him, Rykard although great doesnt give you that option, if you fight Yhorm without stormruler you will probably think hes one of the best bosses in the game.
I pre ordered DS3 started deprived and and played it to completion. This was my first souls game. I became a fan because I didn't take the easy route and I accepted the challenge.
my thing with midir was that his health pool is so big that attempts take a long time and mistakes usually mean death. i was kinda shit then tho so maybe i will replay and fight him again
I’ve yet to do a level 1 run of the game, my lowest was level 10 and I remember it being the most fun I have ever had playing the game. It forced me to really understand the game, I was constantly changing weapons to suit the situation and pray on bosses weaknesses.
Pontiff is a nightmare on a lot of challenge runs. He was insanely frustating on my bare fist run because his hitbox is janky and hits often didn't register. This was true of my shield only run as well, but that was obviously much easier.
I'm yet to do bare fist, but I remember STRUGGLING on shield and whip runs. But with fists, at least you have a very clear opening, since you can just parry only him
Every time I hear that piano in the Soul of Cinder's boss music it gives me tingles and shivers due to nostalgia and all the feels I felt for beating DS1 when I was younger and being introduced to it by my best friend
Such a great video, I subbed immediately when you said this was going to not only be a level 1 play through but an analysis essay and a boss tier list. Love the video and am going to be checking out the back catalog as well. Cheers
The thing about ds3 is they could have very easily done lots of interconnectivity and Cinders mod if anyone has played it does kind of do some connectivity. For example the bridge above Farron Keep could have very easily connected back to Undead Settlement. The dungeon area below undead settlement could have connected back to Catacombs of Carthus. Ontop of this they could have had cool shortcuts between Lothric Castle and Wall of Lothric and they could remove some bonfires and improve run backs as they could just reuse old ones. Most of the shortcuts would also not ruin progression that much as most could be only activatable on one side or even both. The bridge connection between Farron Keep and Undead Settlement would not ruin any progression and just add a cool shortcut. They could have even made the boss on the bridge be a skill check for that shortcut to be activated. Carthus shortcut is bascially just giving you access to that area as you need to kill Wolnir for Irithyll and Abyss Watchers for the connection to Farron Keep. However that could be a one sided shortcut and have abyss watchers be required to connect there. They could also have had Firelink be connected directly to Wall of Lothric. DS3 could have had good connectivity not as good as ds1 obviously but could have been amazing.
Hey, I've got 100 hours on DS3. Only ever finished the main game, touched the DLCs a little bit and then moved on to other games. After watching this video, I decided to give soul lvl 1 a try and it has made the game feel completely new to me. I actually have to pay attention in boss fights, I actually have to learn movesets and I'm actually intimidated by groups. I'm finally using items like alluring skulls during the deacons fight which makes them leave whoever has the red soul thing. Watchers of the Abyss was an awesome fight where I died ~10 times before learning good positioning and getting a really satisfying kill. I'm pulling aggro on enemies with firebombs to take them out one by one. It feels really fun to play. I just arrived at Irithyl and had the fight with the beast on the bridge, after a few tries I killed it and I no longer feel like they're just random spammy monsters; it turns out, I was the spammy one because the game allows you to just spam r1, roll 1000 times and chug estus in front of danger. So yeah, thanks for this video, I watched it after dropping Elden Ring for the second time because I find the bosses to be everything wrong with souls games, just standing there remembering the 12 different delays on a swing on bosses that never stop attacking.
Your explanation of a level 1 run is exactly what I thought of when I started my one handed only run FYI I use controller so it was some what easier but I made it harder by only using my left hand (weak one) I thought “sounds ridiculous no one has probably thought of trying to beat the game with a single hand so how hard can it be?” Spent only 10 hours to beat the game but 2 of them were failed attempts at the abyss watchers, friede and gael When I beat gael with genuinely the smallest amount of health I’ve ever had i souls game I realised just how much fun the whole run was If someone is reading this and thought this challenge is silly or interesting I honestly implore you to try it out It’s a fantastic challenge and really tests your patience and memory of all the bosses attacks
For me, a lot of the apparent "issues" with ds3 are non-issues, even the one I think that is the most fair criticism people have for it being the lack of creativity is a non-issue to me because it makes sense within the world lore and to me it actually makes for the best storytelling in the entire series. Personally, I don't think there's a single thing either ds1 or 2 does better than ds3, though that may also have to do with the fact I think the whole interconnected level design is the most overblown "positive" about a video game of all-time and I far prefer ds3 not having that. I'm happy though to finally find someone who agrees that Midir is actually one of the easiest bosses in the entire game once you learn how to vs him, I keep trying to tell people that once you understand his moveset you'll find yourself accidentally no-hitting him without even trying to. It only feels so hopeless at first because his HP pool is massive and getting hit costs you half your own HP.
As a lore aside, Gael consumes the blood because the blood had dried. It couldn’t be used as pigment in that form, so he consumed it so that his body could turn it into liquid blood. However, by the time the player arrives, he’s overcome with the desire to consume it all instead of acting rationally as it has almost entirely turned him insane. All that’s left is the desire for the Dark Soul
That makes sense.
In the end Gael was still a slave. From the gods, to his own insanity.
He also knew the player would be following him, and counts on us to put him down and give the pigment to the little girl, accomplishing his mission
Damn bro knows his shit
@@noravanguard I strongly disagree with that. Gael led you through both the Painted World and Ringed City DLCs because him being driven insane by his search for the Pygmy Lords was all part of his plan from the very start when you meet him in the Cleansing Chaspel. He led you to his future self after he digested the dried blood of the Pygmy Lords so you two could clash and he could spill blood, now the Blood of the Dark Soul. From the very start he knew he would never make it and he would have to be killed by you so you could harvest the Blood of the Dark Soul from him and give it to his lady. He died as his former master Gwyn's worst nightmare come true, and as a free Man who gave himself to a cause he believed in.
Something to note with Gael is that the lightning isn’t quite random, but is directly tied to the red Rancors from his cape. Whenever he explodes and releases the rancors, wherever they land is where the lightning will strike, and the lightning can hurt Gael. So you can use it to your advantage. Pay attention to where the skulls land, bait Gael into their range, and roll into/around a safe spot.
However he's almost immune to lightning damage.
@@Sir-Pleiades that’s probably because the lightning is capable of hurting him. Interesting choice on the devs part, but it just adds to the fight in my opinion.
@@Rexis102 Might represent how both of you are still human. What hurts you can still hurt him.
@@Sir-Pleiades His own lightning from the cape red rancors that spawns.
There is random lightning around that does even more but the chance of it hitting him is extremely slim.
Have over 700 hours and disnt know this... based
Lorewise, Farron Keep is actually Ollacille (can’t spell) from ds1, the place you get to fight manus and artorias. The poison swamp makes sense lore wise since poison swamps usually follow with the abyss. If anyone’s wondering how you figure that out, dusks gear is found in the swamp, the mushrooms from ds1 are found in a cave and white birch trees are found in the swamp.
I'm a little surprised that he didn't mention that the Demon Prince's arena is Firelink Shrine
Farron Keep being Oolacile explains why those weird ape swamp enemies that eat your face off exist, since they are probably decedents of the enemies we fought in Oolacile previously.
@@feebleking21 there are so many references to Farron Keep being Oolacile that i'm surprised that your first choice was to compare it to Blighttown just because of the poison swamp. The section with the dead mushroom enemies, the Crown of Dusk, the golden scroll, and even the fact that the abyss watchers pretty much have the remains of the soul of artorias are just some to name
@@jhx97 also the slugs.
Isn’t Elizabeth’s body in the cave that has the golden scroll?
one of my facourite things about Gael fight is that in third phase is that if you run away from him a bit too far, he will shorten the distance by literally placing a summoning sign under you and summon himself there
He literally is powerful enough to break the game rules and use his own summon signe on another players world xD
@@jurivjerdha2467I men’s he has been alive since the war against dragons all the way to the end of time getting to the dark soul the long way, I’m sure anyone would figure out travel between worlds by force within those thousands of years
@YOURteacher_100 ewe cliché clone huemans programmed backwards should be somewhat aware more 👁️🦁♌🔥
I read Gael as a dark[er] mirror of the player. He set out to create his own promised land, but after millenia of killing and consuming souls he forgets why he is doing what he's doing and just becomes a monster of mindless consumption. That's what makes that final battle such an amazing conclusion to the series - two chosen undead fighting to the death at the end of time in the ruins of the world for a purpose neither really know or understand.
Is it chosen people? or just two nobodies fighting at the end of time for some paint.
@@_Tzer for some paint that will create a new world. Gael knew he would end up like this and guided the player to him in order to kill him and take the paint.
It is the most important item for this doomed world
@@_Tzer 2 idiots with a lot of luck that the world has not killed them, so yeah, 2 nobodies who wanted a better world, one forgotten of his adventure and the other going basically tru the same thing
This comment doesn't make sense. Gael knows exactly what he is fighting for, the dark soul to use as pigment for his lady's painting. He still remembers it when he was fighting you. He only goes hollow once he realizes his mission is fulfilled, and leaves it up to you to deliver the pigment.
So both participant in this fight has a purpose. Whether your character realizes it or not is up to you, but Gael absolutely knows what he's doing.
"two chosen undead fighting to the death at the end of time in the ruins of the world for a purpose neither really know or understand."
False, I fight Gael simply because of that OST, skill-building, and because it's cool
Can’t wait for “Dark Souls 2 is WORSE at level 1”. Agility is such a fun stat :)
True, you need to actually think for that one =D
Agility gear exists tho, and its plenty of them actually. Full set, ring, crown, weapon.
Anyway ds2 is an easy walk before Glass Knight. His attacks requires agility or incredibly good spacing.
@@EdgarikiLGK just have some bad hitboxes honestly
Currently on my ds2 sl1 CoC run right now. With agility gear, i-frames aren't that terrible. And ds2 sl1 has wider weapon options compared to ds1 and ds3 (great club is usable in ds2 sl1).
The hit boxes are even worse than having to level rolling.
I love that, when the Abyss Watchers showed up on-screen and the music played, I audibly said "that's Ludwig's theme"
Hey there! When it comes to the Demon Prince slam attack, you can just walk backwards (not run, walk as he flies upwards) and when he slams just dodge backwards. For me it works 100% of the time
Edit: When it comes to Gael consuming the Dark Soul, he did it because when he reached the pigmy lords he saw that their blood had been dry for a long time. It wasn't suitable for turning it into paint so he consumed the Dark Soul in order for his blood to "liquify" it
I wish I knew this during my first SL1 run. Thankfully by the time I did my second it I already knew about it
37:57 Gwyn was already stuck guarding the flame by the time his son was striped of his title. We know, because the son left his weapon on Gwyn's coffin at the castle.
I also believe it's close because all the lands are converging upon lothric
Huh. I didn't know that little tidbit. What was his weapon before he left for Archdragon Peak? His current one is the Dragonslayer Sword-Spear, a prototype to the Dragonslayer's Spear wielded by Ornstein
@CrimZon Pegasus you know that all ornsteins we fought in DS1 DS2 and empty armors in DS3 were illusions and fanboys (like Abyss Watchers or Havel Knights) and real one went on a journey to find nameless king probably becoming a dragon - either the one the nameless king rides, the ancient wyvern or meditating one. During development they even planned to make him a boss fight in giant tree arena below the alter overlooking the giant archdragon - that's why you find his armor there.
Imagine fighting real ornstein half turned into a dragon.
Stripped*
@@crimzonpegasus9714 the sunlight blade miracle. The description specifically says that the nameless king left this miracle on his father's grave when he left Anor Londo
If you find Wolnir disappointing, try killing him without damaging his bracelets next time. It is not only doable, but gives you a unique death animation for him as well
If it helps, you can destroy two of his three bracelets and THEN kill him without damaging the third one. The unique death animation still plays then.
Then it goes from disappointing to sleep-inducing.
Hey, if it's challenging you are looking for then that sounds like a great idea
Sometimes I just forgot the main topic of this video while watching it. This honestly just felt like a review of the game talking about the mechanics and level design in constructive and concise detail. This is incredible.
dancer has a lot of openings during her whirly attacks where you can stand and she'll wiff multiple in a row with a good timed roll. the endurance shouldn't be a problem. but I also like how this shows you discovered your own strategies and not just look up ultra pro dark souls guy level 1 run videos lol.
she's actually one of my favorite bosses in the game.
I'll have to try that on my next level 1 run!
@@feebleking21 next💀
They really went above and beyond for no reason with Dancer as most properly leveled people can totally skip phase 2.
It's a fun fight on challenge runs though
Dancer has one of the most opening in the game
I think the most creative part of DS3 is its lore, ironically. Thematically it concludes everything beautifully imo. It's all reaching natural conclusions, the different areas of the lore
Ironically? What's ironic about it?
In any case I'm torn between agreeing and being frustrated at the extent to which bad translation has rendered it incoherent. There's seemingly a LOT of nuanced ideas that were lost in translation that would have gone a long ways towards smoothing over the feeling that DS3 pretty much retcons DS1's "laws of the universe". It's been argued that the Big Crunch has something to do with it but that's sort of a lazy answer.
Who are you? Ya made of ash, dingus (what? No seriously, what ARE you?)
The embers of bonfires make you... better somehow (again, what?)
The Darksign no longer has much to do with hollowing specifically any more, in your case as a weird ash golem thing, you get your own version of the Curse. (actually a new thought for me which makes this make *slightly* more sense)
Instead, the Dark Sigil is related to *hollowing* and the Undead specifically. Whcih sure, it's the thing we've seen on the body of Undead before, but how are you, a pile of ash, able to get it again and start hollowing again? Oh boy, double-curse! And why don't you start needing *humanity* again?
There's a nation of intelligent hollows (bullshit, half of "being hollow" is that no soul = no sanity)
Aaand then there's the rest of it, compared to DS1 the motivations & actions of all the major players don't really *fit together* so much as they're just... a series of things that happened.
I see so few people bring up how it's clearly established by the game that the land of Lothric has some special force slowly pulling other distant lands towards it eventually smashing them all together until it's nothing but ash and dust remaining. this is such a cool detail to me that the game really drives home a lot but also could have explored a lot more
like the dreg heap you see at the end of the game and get to play in the DLC is not just a creative idea they did cause they could and it's cool to have nostalgia... they actually built up to it with the lore and worldbuilding it's why there is so much familiar in the game entwined with the new and why it's so apocalyptic feeling. i get if people don't enjoy how derivative DS3 can feel but that derivative nature is core to it's storytelling and worldbuilding pretty much everything revolves around this being the twisted remains of what we saw in the previous games, before our eyes being ground down into nothing... it's so tragic and heartbreaking when you look at it this way and ties into that theme of not wanting to let go of the past... the message of the game with Lothric is that you have to move on cause the world doesn't wait for you to move on and if you keep dwelling on the past you will just end up caught inbetween the old world and new one this is basically what happened to gael
it's all because of the lore point that these are the end times for the whole world of Dark Souls and the way it's manifesting is this final kingdom of Lothric basically is a magnetic force pulling in any other kingdoms that have been influenced by the struggle between age of fire and darkness to finally end it all this makes gael even more of a tragic character because he really is just fighting against the end times for the world he has always known, if he can't have his world stay in tact he will just make a new one by any means necessary and what we see when we touch Fillianore's egg is the very end results of what's happening in Lothric with the phenomena of pulling in distant lands... everything is just ground down to ash & dust, barely any remnants of the kingdoms that once remained just an endless wasteland that's beautiful in it's own way
This lore point is so cool and interesting to me it makes me also wish they did more with it and I see a lot of missed potential in the game, really wish Dreg Heap was a much more expanded area with more intertwining aspects of the previous games being smooshed together into this twisted destroyed amalgamation, it's such an inspired and creative idea
Seriously? DS3's story is literally the exact same from DS1, oh the fire is fading let's decide if we want link it or not. At least DS2 tried to tell a different story about the first sin and such
@@windflier1684 the amount of people who agree with me indicates that you're probably not correct and are biased
The estus problem might be because they designed the game to always have a few ash estus for recovering spells/combat arts
100%. The same problem is almost non-existent in Elden Ring because ashes of war and magic were all actually really good and useful for 99% of builds. I never ran full estus in Elden Ring, but I nearly always did in DS3, especially at sl1.
The complaint with bosses also makes me wonder if I'm the only person who hardly ever runs out of estus on a boss. I almost always either kill the boss without having to use too many flasks, or I die from mistakes I make before I can run out of estus. Outside of early game, especially ds 2, it's rare for me to actually run out of estus. (Though ds 2 also has life gems in its equasion.)
@@MalzraAirwynn yeah pretty much. If you running out of estus on a boss you need to take a step back and learn the moves and openings
@@MalzraAirwynnIn Ds2 Estus is so slow that i always take 2 instead of 1 because getting hit is almost guaranteed even if you baited long recovery attacks.
Yet never ran out of because of lifegems being so broken
@@anstorner 2, especially early on, is reallly the exception since you start out with what, one use of it? And yeah it's slow especially early on. Until you get enough bone shards to have a decent number and enough adaptability to make your drinking faster.
I still died a fair amount in 2 even with life gems, though I also did high speed low armor builds, and the slow healing of life gems wasn't always enough if I was hit again before recovering.
I love what you did with the video here, a lot of comparisons to previous games, a tier list, and a challenge run all in one. Big love
Farron Keep isn’t actually Blighttown, given Elizabeth’s presence as a corpse it’s actually Darkroot Garden- unless it’s actually both / merged… which is actually viable given their proximity (with erosion just having them fall into one another)
Unlikely to be both, as Sen's, Firelink, Parish, and Burg would have to all fall into Blighttown for Darkroot to fall into Blighttown, as they're all in between the two, which are on opposite points of the triangle they form with the Archives/Crystal Cave.
Darkroot is closer to Kiln and Anor Londo. No clue how it became the anywhere close to the height Farron is, as the keep is ~level with Anor Londo...
@@theapexsurvivor9538 The land clearly changed between games
Its oolacile township
@@RedWolfenstein Oolacile Township is Darkroot Garden 🗿
@@Orzacle which is then also farron keep
Soul of cinder first phase is one of my favourite designs even in DS3 tbh. One thing nobody seems to catch is that 3 of the 4 phase one movesets (which is already crazy it has so much variety) have their own unique buffs that linger through whenever he swaps movesets. The pyro curved sword has lingering power within, the miracle and spear user has a heal over time and the mage has a permanently respawning crystal soulmass and the difficulty of these is also balanced with power withing being basically meh, heal over time being annoying but not much more and the soulmass being the only one that actually changes how the fight plays out since it's attached to the comparably weak sorcerer moveset. Oh and I personally like to fight the sword moveset the most, it has annoying delayed attacks sure but hey, it's almost like you have to learn how to avoid certain attacks in Dark Souls what a shocker.
Edit: Forgot to mention, loved the video great job.
Pontiff was the only boss I struggled with and actually hated to fight in my first run of DS3, and I think your comparisons to Elden ring with him really make it clear why I didnt like a lot of those bosses
Funnily enough I feel the opposite, I love the never ending combos and love elder ring boss design
@@maroonring that’s definitely fair enough. I somewhat recently have been replaying DS3 and after playing Elden ring, I found he was MUCH easier to manage. I’m hoping with my insights from a first play through, when I get around to a second Elden ring run I’ll share your opinion :)
@@EJB9 I personally feel like most of the Dark Souls 3 bosses are a bit too easy. It's just roll and backtrack to win, that's why I love Elden Ring bosses who punish roll spamming and backtracking, forcing you to play to aggressively. Perfectly timing rolls through a barage of attacks and hitting at the tiniest of inetrvals while staying in the boss's face just feels so exhilarating.
I swear to god, Margit ruined everything, he and Malenia are the only bad bosses, every other one is completely fine
@@sassas1487i feel the issue with margit/morgott is that it feels like he’s in control. It’s not a boss fight, it’s just waiting for margit to stop his stunlocking temper tantrum to have one opportunity to beat him over the head with a stick. Malenia on the other hand is just a fucking pain. Her insta activating hyper armor and just blatant ignorance of game mechanics is bs.
I like how even something as difficult as a SL1 run has options to make the game easier. Using the profaned UGS for human sized enemies, parrying bosses like pontif and Gundry, poisoning bosses like Gael and Demon King. There are so many options to make these games easier even without leaving, it's very impressive game design.
I feel justified in having Champion Gundyr and Pontiff Sulyvahn as my favorite bosses in the series now! Also I think I'm finally going to commit to A SL1 run
I enjoyed my lvl1 run so much. Being forced to actually study the bosses and formulate counter strategies was so satisfying. The fight against Gael started to feel like a dance, and when I was 1 hit away from killing him, I lost on purpose so I could do it again and back up my save file so I'd always be able to repeat the fight.
I made it an additional challenge by restricting my weapons and armor to the starting class gear, only changing rings and equipment, and not using estus flasks.
Crystal Sage was surprisingly challenging, I overcame it by buying throwing knives to kill the clones from a distance.
There's something that makes the deacons of the deep fight way easier. Transpose Vordt's soul into the Pontiff's eye ring, which heals you with repeated hits. If you hit many hits within a few seconds, you get an ungodly amount of healing from it. With the swarm of deacons this becomes very easy, especially if you're dual wielding sellswords.
Aldrich was a pain in the ass because of the homing projectiles spam, with me not using estus.
I even refused to equip the stormbringer, instead having onion bro deal the damage while I was doing my best to keep aggro.
dasbombeds
for anyone interested, you can actually predict where crystal sage will spawn by just looking at the crystal patterns.
Your idea of a dark dimension is so creative, they could even include ruined versions of areas from previous games too, like firelink shrine or anor londo. You should talk to someone from fromesoft about this
Gael is a legend . He went thro everything for an endless amount of time in order to archive his goal and find the pigment for the little girl who showed a little bit of kindness to him. He was a slave knight and always treated poorly. When he found the pygmy lords he went in shock that the blood had dried out. He knew the only way to recreate the blood was by absorbing it into his own blood. For it he needed the power of all the dark soul and to hunt down the pygmy lords for eternity. He knew that even if he succeeded the dark soul would set him insane and he wouldn’t be able to deliver it to the girl. He was about to go hollow until he found us , that is why he is half insane at that state. He makes sure we make it to where he would be , at the end of the world . At first phase we see Gael in a corrupt state , like Artorias or the Abyss watchers. When we spill his blood and he sees that he had succeeded into recreating it and that we hold the power to fight him he goes hollow. His mission was over and he had no reason to keep fighting or living. Thats where we really fight the power of the dark soul at its peak..and honestly..its way scarier than what gwyn could ever put on when we fight him in the kiln of the first flame .
He actually turns hollow interestingly, dude managed to stay sane for thousands of years and managed to go between worlds without the need to be summoned
Through*
uhm i said it for short@@jarlwhiterun7478
Midir is my favorite dragon fight in the entire series, but not because he is the hardest. because he is the *fairest*. Its a long, reasonable tough fight against a foe with lots of health who hits like a truck.... but every hit you take is your fault. It is, in my experience, completely fair whilst still being epic and thus I love it.
Some days midir is my all time fav boss he def in my top 5.
I disagree. I think his laser barrage in phase 2 is not something that you can reasonably dodge on your first time, and it one shots most character. The animation for when the laser comes towards you during the 4th and 6th "swing" of the barrage is too sudden for an attack that kills you instantly. Combined with his large hp pool, he can be very annoying to fight unless you look up the attack online. I can kill him reliably nowadays, but he was very aggravating on my first run of Ringed City.
I still don't like fighting him, because he takes too long even with constant head attacks, and his attacks aren't very fun to avoid, since he has very little variation in his combos compared to human bosses.
I will say, after you fight him for a While, absolutely.. for the most part
His laser that then explodes after a few moments has a really, really shoddy hitbox
Along with how you get forced into DPS race near the very end
But I will say, you are absolutely right!
calling midir is easy like in the video is just being a clown. He's is easy when you LEARN his entire moveset but that does not mean that he is suuuper easy like said in the video, he has that lazer, sometimes you have to fight the camera and still get a huge healthbar - health reduction and high damage. You will suffer before you learn to hit the head and learn his moveset as well as dodge his godzillal lazer. He is 100% of the game strongest bosses.
The Rivers in the Desert insert at 50:07 made me unimaginably happy
Pedophile
all of the persona 5 music made me unimaginably happy
I love the rykard fight. It was the first fight in Eldon ring that made me play the boss like it was dark souls 1. They make it easy enough with the serpent slayer they give you but if you spam the attacks you're not going to get very far in the fight. I resorted to my four King strategy and put on full heavy armor and then used flame resistance and stayed underneath him
I think that Elden Ring adding combo extenders and combo branch’s is actually something that makes every boss more mechanically interesting and fun along with delayed attacks it forces you to master the moveset of the bosses I can see how some people would dislike that but it offers the most fun challenge.
I really like this video because it covers several different topics: you talk about your experience with a sl1 run, make a boss ranking and talk about game mechanics and other things, so it is like a semi-review of the game. Really well done.
And the king gives his subjects another quality dose of souls content. Long live the king 👑
Pontiff actually has very fixed combos but they only progress if you're in the correct position otherwise he stops his combo, turns and does another one or does one of his two side swipes (the fire sword has a followup, the magic sword might as well?). They also all look very similar which is probably why people think he has infinite combos at first. The openings are at the ends of these combos or sometimes when he doesn't continue a combo (ie turns, as you noticed).
now this is the good stuff. your ds1 sl1 run inspired me to do my own and it was freaking awesome
I managed to do an sl1 run years ago but took a break for a while as I was stuck in soul of cinder.
Ended up putting that playthrough in the back burner for a long time.. and a couple of months later my hard drive died.
I've never had the drive to go back and attempt the playthrough again.
Kudos for knocking it out, great video man
FINALLY! The long awaited return of the Feeble King!
I swear i have a sixth sense for this things, just yesterday i came to see if there was any new video.
pontiff doesn't have unlimited combo extensions. he uses certain extensions depending on where you are to him(right side, left side) and in this vid you are fighting him chaotically so it might seem that he does a certain extension randomly but he is just responding to whatever you are doing. the easiest way to fight him is to constantly stay on his right side
One thing about the difficulty though is that it completely depends on the order you play these games in. Dark Souls 3 was my first souls game, so I was constantly running out of estus and the game felt challenging my whole way through on my first playthrough. However, when I went back and played dark souls 1, I found it too easy even without kindling (aside from a few parts like the dlc and anor Londo)
The order I went in was:
BB, started it and got past Father Gascoin but then put it down, wasn't enjoying it.
Elden Ring got me back into the series. Finished it.
Replayed and finished BB.
Then I did the Dark Souls trilogy in order, picking the Scholar version for DS2.
I found DS 1 to honestly be the easiest of the lot. Not that I never died or anything. But none of the base game bosses took more than a few tries. And the only level that gave me too much trouble was Sen's Fortress. I still had a good number of deaths, but it wasn't until the DLC that DS 1 really got difficult for me. O&S took me three attempts. Nothing in the game was quiet as difficult as Friede or Nameless King for me.
Personally between the three, DS 1 was the easiest. DS 2 had the hardest levels due to too much enemy spam in places, and DS 3 had the hardest and most fun bosses on average for me. I'm giving the vanilla DS 2 a go now and enjoying it a bit more than Scholar in the levels, but I think the bosses are still the same.
@@MalzraAirwynn i find it very interesting when people say that nameless is the hardest boss of ds3 or atleast close to that. i personally don't even think he's top 5
@@Omenify Different people have more or less difficulty I guess with different bosses I guess. Nameless King wasn't the hardest boss for me in DS 3, that was Friede, but he did take me the longest to beat among the base game bosses of DS 3.
@@MalzraAirwynn oh, yeah, i know that. its just that he objectively has a way simpler moveset than bosses like friede, soul of cinder, dancer, demon prince. only thing that really gives him difficulty is his hp and how hard he hits perhaps.
@@Omenify It's always interesting to see what bosses do or don't give people trouble. Dancer for example doesn't give me much trouble at all. Even play through to play through I can have different experiences if I'm in a funk or just in a stride when I hit a certain boss. For example first play through I smashed through crystal sage really quickly, but for some reason I died several times on my second play through, which I think was mostly down to just being in a bad mood and if I'd just stepped away and come back the next day probably would have beaten it easily again.
I feel like this makes the hawk ring very viable considering it lets you zoom further with binoculars and changes the arcs of certain throwables and decreases damage falloff for certain throwables(daggers iirc). Oh also crossbow damage is neato.
dark souls 3 level design is insane, so much wallpaper material in every corner!
How did I not see this on my feed...I only saw this on my recommended feed, wow time to really ring that bell, will devour this video as soon as I get home
If you've played dark souls 3 PVP in undead matches, at level one and no upgrades, it's so funny to dual higher level players, because they get scaled down to you in so many weird ways.
Anyone else struggle so much first play through but now watch videos like this because you know how to kill these bosses better? Like standing behind Aldrich to avoid arrows, or the bell jump for Wyvern.
I liked being able to choose to stay in wall of lothric and grind the greataxe to fight the dancer with, it felt like being somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be and breaking the game in the best way.
Level 1 was fun to have those limited amount of options and sometimes choosing different weapons or rings based on what you enjoyed most, or just rockin’ the broadsword. And it finally gave me the incentive to try out lighter load fashion souls since I never did mage builds.
I think I stopped at the Midir dragon cuz I had spent like a week on it and barely got half his health down. But I did enjoy Gael, finding and mastering all his attack patterns and getting as perfect a run you can get is so satisfying. I’m honestly tempted to redownload the game and ng+ that character to see any increase in challenge
The comment you made about the friend that inspired your SL1 series made me chuckle, it’s almost comical how certain players can run through the whole game using strength weapons and not recognize the exponential difficulty change when you can trade damage with every enemy in the game haha good stuff man, this run seemed like a blast to pull off.
Great content as always man, I'm doing a level 1 run myself, can't wait for another banger
This video has inspired me to start a SL 1 run in DARK souls 3 and my God is it fun and a well needed challenge I need
Liked video as soon as I heard Midir music followed by Watcher Knights 😍 great taste man
Mantis Lords too?! aahh
ik its an old video now but im so happy to hear the praises for champion gundyr. your analysis of his design is so spot on too
I find it funny how you say dark souls 3 isn’t creative but also constantly say how creative certain areas and bosses are. Dark souls 3 has the objectively the most creative bosses in the series and it’s not even close
I agree but I think that's to it's detriment. Half of the bosses are meme bosses that just have some basic gimmick
@@markkeys1142 you have got to be joking
@@sneaky5141 count em bro
Yhorm, Deacons, Wyvern, Wolnir, Greatwood, Halflight, Watchers, Sage
@@markkeys1142 LUNATIC take oh my god you are the furthest beyond delusional
@@markkeys1142yup. The only gimmick bosses done right imo are the twin princes since you have to actually attack the guy hanging on the back and not just mindlessly attack the teleporting one.
I love how you talk about the lore and the actual mechanics of the run as well
Once i saw your video about ds1 at level 1 I was inspired to do it, but I convinced myself to do ds3 first and oh boy, what a joy. Thanks for the suggestion. And wow, look at that, now we have a level 1 video about ds3. Great work, keep it up!
I have to thank you for making this video, the part on Midir made it so, on my third try. I was able to beat him without summoning for the first time.
😊v 6c ctn59999 24:42 poopppoop 😊
26:52 The thing with the dancer is that her attacks come on tempo. You can literally predict when she's gonna hit because this boss battle is an array of different combos and wait times, all sorted and placed to go with a certain tempo (it's been a long time since i've played but i think it was 3/4, like arrays of three pulsations and combos based on those arrays)
Dude what an amazing video. Great descriptions and explanations, nice humour and it's awesome that you're so open when talking about the bosses attacks/openings. I can't imagine how much time you spent on the game, but after all of that you're able to say 'maybe i missed something' instead of blaming the game. That's admirable.
I recently started playing Elden Ring and had a though time with Margit's delays, so I died when you showed him when talking about Sulyvahn.
Again, awesome work man
Sometimes I think the only thing they had to do to make DS3 link together (somewhat) is make a path that leads from Firelink to High Wall of Lothric, right?
I'm coming down the home stretch of my first DS3 SL1 run and it has been amazing. Highly recommend everyone try it!
only 16k views in 2 days? being a challenge run and a video essay all in one, this is highly underrated. though i do believe that this video will get the attention it so well deserves shortly
Best part about Wolnir is when you first play the game and grab the item in the dark cavern and boom he's right there
I really enjoy these videos and would look forward to a DS2 video in a similar vein. However... I think DS2 gets worse at SL1 (thanks ADP) but it actually gets better if played deathless and without bonfires (i.e. to get the 2 illusory rings)!
This is because it makes lifegems make sense since you don't *also* have estus and you can't just always warp back to Majula and buy more. It also makes the world design being essentially 4 different straight lines before Drangleic a lot more interesting since often, the easiest way to return to Majula is to beat that "path" and use the special bonfire at the end to warp back.
[Alternatively, since a deathless run can be pretty damn time consuming you could always just say no using bonfires to warp and I guess no suiciding to return to Majula lmao]
For Elden Ring you need to add a few more stipulations. First, no summons except for quest stuff. Second, you need to do the regions in order, especially with you not being allowed to get items from the next region until you complete whatever stuff you were going to do in the one you're on. Do all the stuff in Limgrave, then in Liurnia, then in Caelid (maybe leave Dragonbarrow for later to save your sanity), then Altus Plateau etc. Third, you can't use the horse to skip past combat encounters. Siofra River is quite a challenging area if you're forbidden the horse, an experience I'm glad I had. Bosses like dragons and Radahn are okay if you mainly use Torrent as a mobility tool or to dodge big attacks.
So far I've beaten Radahn and boy that was an intense experience. Surprisingly, it was an amazing solo experience if you go in expecting an intense challenge. All of his moves are readable once you get the hang of the fight, once you get a route to get though the arrow phase with Torrent it becomes pretty consistent, and actual bullshit is quite rare (ground lightning AoE can kill you the moment they spawn if you're up close attacking him during certain combos, and he can do a one shot sword slam move if you're lingering close to him and he hasn't started a new combo. The latter is definitely hurt by the camera not showing you the windup, but towards the end of my fighting him I somehow gained an instinct that made me avoid it).
There's a lot of criticisms in this video that just don't make sense to me (like farron keep being blighttown?) But saying it's a negative for ds3 to have 15 estus charges while simultaneously praising ds1's 20 charges is really telling
I think the biggest issue with DS3's design is that Miazaki probably never wanted to make it. Despite them being well made and as gorgeous as can be, it misses that real enthusiasm for design the mad man has for his other games like Bloodborne.
Pontiff feels so much like an Elden ring boss that they added him to the dlc…
Pontiff is more fun than Rellana imo.
@@feebleking21 i agree right now but I wanna see some strats develop first before saying so.
@@feebleking21 Pontiff is fun until you kill him in a minute cause his healthbar is so tiny. and Rellana literally has more openings than Pontiff your SOTE video was so braindead man
I notice that you seem to be the type of person who learns boss fights through analyzing them, and I think that's interesting. You mentioned how Nameless King can never follow up on odd-number attack combos, but can on even ones, and how "any player should be able to learn this through observation," but I had no idea about that until you mentioned it, even as somebody who can hitless Nameless King with relative ease. As somebody who learned these fights with just practice and muscle memory, I think it's really cool hearing from somebody whose learning method is so different from my own.
I haven't played the dlc as a sl1, as my sl1 run was before they came out. Nameless King was my personal favorite fight in the base game and I nearly cried when I actually beat him. I also was doing a hitless rtsr build for that fight so I could take out the King of Storms quickly.
Great video. Your channel is super underrated. This is better than rusty vids imo
0:05 this only sentence really made me say BRUH outloud
FRR
It is easy
It is much easier than Elden ring imo
I actually did DS3 SL1 a few years back and I loved it. The dlc bosses were brutal but the whole experience as a blast
This video is just great. Dark Souls videos on UA-cam are too many but watching yours always feels like a breath of fresh air.
Videos like this are my reminder that having basic competence in any context will make you hate 90% of the community
Your point on Pontiff "he does have openings you just have to find it" is the exact reason after trying no hit runs and RL1 runs in Elden Ring iv come to love the bosses so much more. Your point on Pontiff literally relates to all ER bosses. Even Morgott Malenia and Radagon (the ones everyone complain about) all have alot of openings you just have to find them and they arent obvious. Also HARD dissagree about Yhorm. Yhorm gives you the option to fight him without it cause you can get a stagger and the headshots do massive damage to him, Rykard although great doesnt give you that option, if you fight Yhorm without stormruler you will probably think hes one of the best bosses in the game.
I pre ordered DS3 started deprived and and played it to completion. This was my first souls game. I became a fan because I didn't take the easy route and I accepted the challenge.
This dude is just hating for no reason at this point ds3 is magnificent especially in world building
I agree, but compared to Dark souls 1, it isn’t as good.
Sl1 Gave me a whole new love for Old Demon King and revitalized my Hate for the Dancer
my thing with midir was that his health pool is so big that attempts take a long time and mistakes usually mean death. i was kinda shit then tho so maybe i will replay and fight him again
you were most likely hitting his feet or tail. if you only go for his head, he is less of a sponge than gael is.
Level 1 runs are really hard and take a lot of time...
*Squillakilla has entered the chat*
This has a weird "old man yells at cloud" kind of feel to it. Challenge run players, just can't have some regular fun ever.
as someone trying the game at Lv. 1, I can confidently say that Oceiros' charge attack is bullshit
Even soul of cinder cant escape how shitty ds3 spellcasting is
I’ve yet to do a level 1 run of the game, my lowest was level 10 and I remember it being the most fun I have ever had playing the game. It forced me to really understand the game, I was constantly changing weapons to suit the situation and pray on bosses weaknesses.
This was genuinely one of the most beautifully written and well crafted videos I’ve ever seen in my life
Wow, great thumbnail, finally left the Red-apocalyptic madness.
Keep it up!
This guys opinions gave me brain cancer
I love your videos because you’re a true fan of these games but not a simp and that’s hard to find nowadays. Subscribed 👍🏻
The swamp Level in DS3 ist my absolute favoite Level in any Souls Game.
The Atmosphare is awsome 👌
@@highlightermarca-texto3281 no, I think I wasnt slow Walking...
I dont know the item anymore, maybe im wrong about that
I had no idea what to do when Frieda disappears until now so thanks. Also very good video
Bro has way to big a hate bonner for margit
"Outside of the poison swamp in farron keep I don't think there is a bad level in ds3."
Irithyll dungeon: Am I a joke to you?
Pontiff is a nightmare on a lot of challenge runs. He was insanely frustating on my bare fist run because his hitbox is janky and hits often didn't register. This was true of my shield only run as well, but that was obviously much easier.
I'm yet to do bare fist, but I remember STRUGGLING on shield and whip runs. But with fists, at least you have a very clear opening, since you can just parry only him
Honestly, this is the only Dark Souls 3 level 1 playthrough I fully watched. 10/10 video, my friend
What an amazing showcase of skill!
I think the tier list is cancerous but thats whats great about dark souls!
Much love 💖
Sorry to rain on your parade, Farron Keep isn't the same swamp as Blighttown
You always gotta feel something for the people that complain about a souls game being too easy.
Like who you tryna convince bud
The level of low self esteem it takes to desperately try to look better than others is embarrassing. ITs tOo eAsY
Decent Ds3 takes.
God awful Elden Ring takes.
Every time I hear that piano in the Soul of Cinder's boss music it gives me tingles and shivers due to nostalgia and all the feels I felt for beating DS1 when I was younger and being introduced to it by my best friend
The champ... Really is the champ...
My favourite boss in the whole trinity, doing him at level 1.... Fuck. A whole lotta fun & misery.
Such a great video, I subbed immediately when you said this was going to not only be a level 1 play through but an analysis essay and a boss tier list. Love the video and am going to be checking out the back catalog as well. Cheers
"Couldnt click two buttons" Homeward Bone/Darksign: AM I A FUCKING JOKE TO YOU!?
That only takes you to the last bonfire rested at. If you rested at blighttown you would just stay there until you find out a way out.
The thing about ds3 is they could have very easily done lots of interconnectivity and Cinders mod if anyone has played it does kind of do some connectivity. For example the bridge above Farron Keep could have very easily connected back to Undead Settlement. The dungeon area below undead settlement could have connected back to Catacombs of Carthus. Ontop of this they could have had cool shortcuts between Lothric Castle and Wall of Lothric and they could remove some bonfires and improve run backs as they could just reuse old ones. Most of the shortcuts would also not ruin progression that much as most could be only activatable on one side or even both. The bridge connection between Farron Keep and Undead Settlement would not ruin any progression and just add a cool shortcut. They could have even made the boss on the bridge be a skill check for that shortcut to be activated. Carthus shortcut is bascially just giving you access to that area as you need to kill Wolnir for Irithyll and Abyss Watchers for the connection to Farron Keep. However that could be a one sided shortcut and have abyss watchers be required to connect there. They could also have had Firelink be connected directly to Wall of Lothric. DS3 could have had good connectivity not as good as ds1 obviously but could have been amazing.
Hey, I've got 100 hours on DS3. Only ever finished the main game, touched the DLCs a little bit and then moved on to other games.
After watching this video, I decided to give soul lvl 1 a try and it has made the game feel completely new to me. I actually have to pay attention in boss fights, I actually have to learn movesets and I'm actually intimidated by groups.
I'm finally using items like alluring skulls during the deacons fight which makes them leave whoever has the red soul thing.
Watchers of the Abyss was an awesome fight where I died ~10 times before learning good positioning and getting a really satisfying kill.
I'm pulling aggro on enemies with firebombs to take them out one by one. It feels really fun to play.
I just arrived at Irithyl and had the fight with the beast on the bridge, after a few tries I killed it and I no longer feel like they're just random spammy monsters; it turns out, I was the spammy one because the game allows you to just spam r1, roll 1000 times and chug estus in front of danger.
So yeah, thanks for this video, I watched it after dropping Elden Ring for the second time because I find the bosses to be everything wrong with souls games, just standing there remembering the 12 different delays on a swing on bosses that never stop attacking.
I'm happy that you're enjoying the sl1 run!
Your explanation of a level 1 run is exactly what I thought of when I started my one handed only run
FYI I use controller so it was some what easier but I made it harder by only using my left hand (weak one)
I thought “sounds ridiculous no one has probably thought of trying to beat the game with a single hand so how hard can it be?”
Spent only 10 hours to beat the game but 2 of them were failed attempts at the abyss watchers, friede and gael
When I beat gael with genuinely the smallest amount of health I’ve ever had i souls game I realised just how much fun the whole run was
If someone is reading this and thought this challenge is silly or interesting I honestly implore you to try it out
It’s a fantastic challenge and really tests your patience and memory of all the bosses attacks
For me, a lot of the apparent "issues" with ds3 are non-issues, even the one I think that is the most fair criticism people have for it being the lack of creativity is a non-issue to me because it makes sense within the world lore and to me it actually makes for the best storytelling in the entire series. Personally, I don't think there's a single thing either ds1 or 2 does better than ds3, though that may also have to do with the fact I think the whole interconnected level design is the most overblown "positive" about a video game of all-time and I far prefer ds3 not having that. I'm happy though to finally find someone who agrees that Midir is actually one of the easiest bosses in the entire game once you learn how to vs him, I keep trying to tell people that once you understand his moveset you'll find yourself accidentally no-hitting him without even trying to. It only feels so hopeless at first because his HP pool is massive and getting hit costs you half your own HP.