The quality is similar. None of the bosses are quite as good as Artorias himself, but the area is huge and varied, and the bosses are all very interesting if nothing else. There's only one boss I didn't particularly care for, but most people like it quite a lot.

The DLC is totally worth $10.

There isn't a ton of lore, though, just generally enough to get a feel for what happened there.

 

How many armor sets are there in the DLC?

 

Not a lot. There's probably two full sets, and then there's a few extra pieces of armor: a couple enemies drop a single part of their set, there's the crown itself, and this flower dress.

It also makes the Catarina helm a lot easier to get (since it's in a chest there, you don't need to grind the black phantom anymore.)

 

I think I'll wait until all three DLCs are out before getting them then.

 

Just got the DLC myself, just in case there's anyone who wants a 100% blind playthrough, I'll put my thoughts in spoiler tags, though I don't go into detail about anything really.

Spoiler

On the plus side, the areas are by far the best designed in the game, nothing in the main game even comes close to how nice they look and how much fun they are to play through. There's not many new armour sets or weapons, but the ones that are there all look very cool. Not too interested in any of the new spells, I can see that new miracle which is essentially a weaker version of Second Chance potentially being super frustrating though.

For the most part the enemy variation is pretty weak, just some hollow looking dudes with heavy weapons and bows, these weird little bug guys, and fucking poison statues that walk around. There is one super cool enemy type though, which you can't damage until you track down and destroy a statue which makes them invincible.

The bosses really brought the experience down for me though. The optional 'boss' is basically just a gank, just a fight against three regular looking NPCs - a dual wielding swordsman, an archer, and Havel. The final boss is basically just a reskinned Kalameet, but with - it least in my experience of fighting him a few times - totally fucked hitboxes on a few of his attacks. The other boss is just a more boring version of Nashadara, already boring herself, who summons skeletons. Someone told me she also summons Velstadt, but that didn't happen for me so I think it might just be a NG+ thing. None of them are particularly difficult, but I have no idea what level you're actually expected to enter the DLC at, I was 130 for what it's worth.

It's also really short. I downloaded a couple hours ago and I'm already finished. I think it's definitely still worth it, if only because of how dull the areas of the main game are in comparison, but don't expect it to last too long.

Also, just in case anyone didn't know, after beating the final boss of the DLC you can have a chat with Vendrick in the Undead Crypt, which is really cool.

 

Spoiler

Dark Greatsword is rad, though. For whatever reason, they added a MLGS-esque projectile to the Soul Greatsword spell, and it's amazing.

I actually kinda like the Gank Squad. As for Elana, I also didn't get any Velstadts, but apparently that's not a NG+ thing, we just got unlucky; I think she's way more interesting than actual Nashandra, too. Sinh can go fuck himself, though, I agree.

 

Well hopefully the next two are as good as you're saying. I need actual PvE content worth replaying, not the boring crap the main campaign is.

Can't say I'm in love with all the new dark stuff being introduced. Like we needed more reasons to use dark builds. But maybe each DLC will feature stuff for specific build types.

Haven't been able to play the DLC yet because I'm poor. But good to hear good things.

 

Just for the record, just about everything in the DLC resists elemental damage and most of the new weapons are primarily physical. Everyone gets something, but Dark doesn't necessarily get the best deal.

 

So, second piece of DLC - Crown of the Old Iron King - was released a few days ago, and I think it's even better than the first, which was also fantastic. Again I doubt spoiler tags are necessary, but just in case someone wants to go in completely blind.

Spoiler

The level design is again leagues ahead of everything from the main game. This time around, the vast majority of the DLC - excluding a couple of side-paths that mostly just exist as run ups to the other bosses - takes place in a single area, Brume Tower, and it is my favourite area in the entire game, and for me rivals the very best areas from Dark Souls 1 and Demon's Souls. It abandons the interactable environment gimmick from the first DLC (by which I mean the platforms you could raise, and all the switches) which I was initially disappointed by because I thought that was a really cool feature, but makes up for it by just being an extremely well designed area with a ton of secret paths to discover.

As the name suggests, you mostly travel through Brume Tower vertically, starting at the top and making your way down - this could have very easily turned out to be a short, linear experience that you burn through very quickly (much like the final area of the first DLC, the path to Elana which wasn't nearly as well designed as the preceding areas) but it takes on a maze-like quality, with branching paths looping around the tower breaking up the plunging drops, which really helps emphasise just how mammoth this tower is, by the time I reached the bottom I felt like I had travelled thousands of meters below the earth. It's a huge testament to how entertaining vertical level design can be compared to horizontal. Accompanying this is the hugely satisfying moment when you can finally activate all the elevators in the tower when you reach the bottom, both allowing you to again appreciate how far you've travelled down, and also opening up even more sidepaths. Seriously, I can't say enough how much I fucking loved this level, it was absolutely fantastic.

Other people seemed to have liked the bosses from the first DLC more than me, but I can join in with absolutely loving the new bosses now. Well, two of them at least. The third is literally just the Smelter Demon, only with a magic aura and stacked magic defence instead of fire - let's just acknowledge how lazy this is and move on.

But the other two bosses were fantastic. I know some people don't like the 'slightly larger humanoid than you that roughly follows mechanics available to the player' style of the boss, and I can sympathise because when done wrong those fights can be incredibly boring, but this is how you do them fucking perfectly, it was like fighting Allant or Artorias again. Hugely varied movesets with lots of tiny variances and attack delays keep you constantly on your toes, hitboxes that weren't broken as shit, no accompanying gimmicks, just an incredibly satisfying and well designed one-on-one. Fume Knight and Sir Alonne are both absolutely fantastic, and they both wrecked me about a hundred times and every single death felt perfectly fair. That's the best thing you can say about a boss fight really, they were all about the player's skill. And as an added bonus they both feel totally distinct from each other as well, Fume Knight wields an UGS and goes for slow sweeper strikes with the occasional AOE, with Sir Alonne feels like Artorias 2.0 (which I mean in the best way) running and jumping with super-human agility and speed.

The normal enemies are mostly pretty cool, without being particularly exceptional. You have some standard humanoids with a few weapon variations, mostly notable for often popping out of the ash in the areas along the outside of the tower, and the huge heavy hitters which can be a chore to fight. In addition there's some very cool enemies that hold explosive barrels and attempt to bait you to follow them as they run into flames and explode, and a few spellcasters who aren't anything special.

Gear-wise, there's a pretty nice selection of armour sets - including the Fume Knight and Sir Alonne sets which are very nice - and a few new Pyromancies that I haven't had time to test yet but seem pretty cool. There's also a head-piece that effectively makes you immune to Curse, in case Nashandra wasn't enough of a joke already.

Ring wise there doesn't seem to be anything as useful as Flynn's Ring from the first DLC, but there is the extremely cool Simpleton's Ring. It boosts your ADP by around five points and makes you invisible while rolling - not particularly useful as it doesn't give any extra i-frames (aside from what the ADP boost might give you) but the visual effect is so cool i haven't taken it off once.

Some great weapons too, including the Majestic Greatsword which is very similar to Artorias' sword form DS1, including the awesome moveset, and the Smelter Hammer, which requires a hilarious 70 STRENGTH and is apparently very effective in PvP thanks to another very unique moveset.

As a side-note, I found things pretty difficult, harder than most everything else in the game (but still fair, I should note) but then while fighting the final boss I noticed I had been in NG+1 the entire time, so I don't really know how things are on regular NG.

So all in all, 100% worth the money. If the rest of the game was this quality then Dark Souls 2 would have been one of the finest games of all time - as it stands it can at least claim to have one of the finest pieces of DLC of all time. Much hype for the third instalment now.

 

I agree 100%, but with a qualifier:

Spoiler

While you're right that Smelter 2.0 is incredibly lazy, I thought them bringing him back was hilarious and wish they made him required this time.

I really like the new weapons for this DLC, though I haven't tried out all of them and got the chime with Nadalia's soul instead of the Pyromancy. Fire Snake is fucking incredible, Outcry is very good from what I've heard (and seen in videos) - basically an even better Firestorm-style spell - and the third one is pretty cool too.

Sir Alonne has an alternate death animation if you win the fight the right way (I don't know exactly how, but there's video proof of this), which is super cool. I like how it cleared up what happened with Raime, and his boss was really fun too.

All in all, two very good DLCs; can't wait for the third one!

 

I'm curious what the Crown of the Ivory King will bring to the game, in terms of armors and weapons. Presumably, it's gonna be accessed through the Brightstone Cove Tseldora area.

 

Something is presumably going to happen at the Shrine of Winter too, as it has the same fountain thing that you use to access the DLCs. Maybe if you go there with all three crowns you'll get some final bonus boss or area.

 

I'd also like to know what happens if you bring all four* crowns to Memory Vendrick. I imagine they'll have something interesting there.

*Including Vendrick's own crown.

 

I will say the DLC is worlds better than the main game. It's so much better I don't even really know what to say about it. It's so good, but why wasn't this the whole game? etc. etc.

I will say the bosses def getting increased for summons is one of the trolliest things I've seen so far.

Oh, and I sincerely hope miracles are in the next dlc now. I need a reason to make/care about a faith build. :3

EDIT: Sorry, just read Viewtiful's stuff.

Simpletons ring is good in one very, very helpful way. I believe the visual effect shows i-frames. This helps a lot with varying equip loads and adaptability leaving you unsure of exactly where they begin and end. It's nice.

 

Crown of the Ivory King Preview

And screenshots:

 

So softbans are a thing if anyone doesn't know. I used cheat engine to bypass some farming and give myself a bunch of cracked red eye orbs and ended up softbanned. So, if you care about online, I would suggest avoiding those things.

If you do find yourself softbanned: family sharing works. Just make a second steam account, add it to friends, and allow family sharing.

From what I can tell, the folder that holds your save file has a name generated from your steamid. In the event of a softban your account is flagged and put on a shadow server. You can still play with other softbanned players, but no one else. Hint: it's very empty. If you notice a lack of signs, specifically the iron bridge, you're probably softbanned.

So yeah, new character ahoy. Probably just going to make some do-everything build because fuck it, but we'll see.

 

For folks who aren't aware of this yet, From Software/Namco has revealed that next year Dark Souls 2 will be re-released, for the PS4/Xbox One/PC, in a form of an upgraded version of the game, called "Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin".

Now, the thing is that this brings together every DLC released so far, and apparently adds something else to the game, a new NPC of sorts, as well as additional gameplay fixes and what nots. Oh and apparently it's gonna be graphically improved version of the game, i.e. what they initially showed at E3, by way of using DX11 for the game.

If you already have Dark Souls 2, you get the new content for free. But not the graphical overhaul. For that, you have to buy a separate version of the game. Yes, even if you're on PC.

I might be wrong about this at the moment, as I've only read what's up on the Japanese page of this announcement, which I'll link right here.

So yeah. This is just plain awful of FS, if it turns out to be true, that you have to buy yet another version of the game just so you could get what they originally promised and showed us. God fucking damn it. I hope I'm wrong. I hope the graphical update to the game comes free of charge, but I doubt it.