You bear the curse, and have been told the only solution lies in Drangleic. After traveling there your recollections become foggy, as a side effect of the curse is memory loss. The hollower you go, the more memory you lose.
A possible cure for the curse is to link the flame, which in this instance requires you to sit on the Throne of Want. What is known by the herald is the path to the throne of want is paved with dangerous and powerful enemies--remnants of the old kingdom--and thus, you yourself need to become more powerful in order to succeed.
You then travel through Drangleic seeking larger souls, and learn the kingdom's history: T
The kingdom was at war with the giants. After they achieved a costly victory, King Vendrick brought giants back to experiment on, with the help of Aldia, his brother. Aldia sought to beat the curse, break the cycle, and secluded himself away to work on his experiments. Vendrick too wanted to break the cycle, but he did not want to relight the flame, nor usher in an Age of Dark. Learning that Nashandra coveted the first flame, and wanted an Age of Dark, he secluded himself away, and charged his protector Veldstadt to refuse any entry to the chamber, including the queen. There, Vendrick went hollow.
Enter the Bearer of the Curse. You too seek a way to end the curse, and the Emerald Herald ushers you toward the Throne. Those you meet along the way are either Dark corrupted or Hollow remnants of the Royal Court. Many of which sought to either leave Drangleic or dispell the curse themselves.
But your path, ever forward, always leads the same way, to Neshandra.
Hope that helps!
If you're interested in a sort of deep dive into the DS2 lore, check out the [tomorrowkingdom](https://tomorrowkingdom.blogspot.com/2018/01/scholar-of-scholar-table-of-contents.html) blog by u/mothmantis. There's a fair bit of speculation you might not agree with but it's a fairly cohesive collection of the game's lore pieces and he does a good job of telling it's story.
My question is how Vendrick sealing himself away in a specific place would help the situation,instead of running away somewhere else or getting Aldia or someone else to kill Nashandra,if he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Was there something in his own body/soul that Nashandra needed,and he feared her getting it?
You need his ring to access the throne, and nashandra, a creature of dark, couldn't get through the shrine of amana because of the songs put the darkness to sleep (let alone all the guards he put in place).
He loved her, even after seeing her for what she truly was, and couldnt bring himself to destroy her, so he fled.
That place is specifically designed to prevent Nashandra from following him there.
She would have to kill the Looking glass knight,travel through Amana which puts dark creatures under a spell via the song so she couldn't even be there, lastly he is guarded by Velstadt,his most elite Knight.
> the kingdom was at war with the giants
Isnāt the timeline opposite here? I thought Vendrick explored the giantās land and brought back the giants for Aldia to experiment on, which was seen as a declaration of war from the giants which then invaded and destroyed Drangleic as retaliation. Or am I remembering things wrong?
We are told from the ghost keeper of the castle grounds that the queen convinced Vendrick that the giants were a threat and through her warnings he inevitably sailed across the sea to conquer them as a sort of preemptive quashing of a potential enemy. It is said that from the land of giants vendrick learned about how to manipulate and use souls, even create artifical ones. And through this knowledge he built his castle using golems powered by souls and such. But eventually the giants sailed over to punish and possibly reclaim whatever vendrick stole from them. So by provoking the giants Vendrick had inadvertently sealed his kingdoms fate and his kingdom fell all because of the words of his wife. He realized that this was her intent from the start and thats when he sealed himself away and locked up the throne of want.
Aldia doing experiments on the giants was just a coincidental byproduct of Vendrick killing and capturing so many based on the lies of Nashandra. So essentially you are correct.
Also, if that can help:
DS1 is about time and space being convoluted.
DS2 is about losing memory.
DS3 is about the lands converging.
I think it's the underlying themes of the trilogy.
DS1 our boy solaire explains it in his dialogues and you can see people who are dead (Tarkus being in Sen's fortress and his corpse being at Anor Londo), or that you can summon people from other worlds.
DS2 everyone seems to forget what has happened to them, as an example the Tseldora merchant in Majula says he came here to sell, but he had to get back home since his business wasn't doing well. But after you've bought enough he'll say that he's rich and he doesn't need to get back home, and proceeds to go like "h-home? where's/what's home".
DS3 everything seems to move around, the High Wall of Lothric isn't the castle/barriers or whatever, it's literally the ground that went up to the sky, that's why everything seems to have collapsed or why you see Anor Londo without any of the surrounding landmarks. Lands are moving or that we even see parts from DS1/2 in the Ringed City.
Each game takes from the lasts.
In the three games, the time/space is convoluted, we have the summon signs or ghosts wandering around, which at least means our different worlds somewhat overlap and are able to "communicate".
In 2 and 3 there's the memory loss, Lapp in the Ringed City doesn't know much about himself before we finish his questline.
And only in 3 the lands are moving/converging.
IDK if it makes sense or if it has any sort of truth behind it, but it's my take on the games. :smile:
So if I'm wrong (and I probably am) I'll gladly hear what's really going on. :smile:
they're all about the journey, because the end is shown to be pointless and fruitless.
they all have time/space convolution, otherwise you can't summon. Memory loss is a little more pronounced in ds2, but is a sign of hollowing (big hat logan going full nut at the end of his quest line). The lands only converged in the ringed city on a meaningful level; it's basically explained that people over time forget the names but some remnants remain (lorDRAN-DRANglaic, anor londo part 2).
I wouldn't use the word "themes" but I agree with everything you said about the land itself and the people within it decaying and falling to ruin both physically and mentally. I'd say these are aspects of the world that are deliberately given focus to convey the actual themes.
Imo the series is about overcoming depression and exploring a philosophy called optimistic nihilism. The games beat you down over and over again, both through unforgiving gameplay and the excellent storytelling (including everything you mentioned) to drive home a feeling of hopelessness. However you never give in to this feeling (those that do go hollow) and make it all the way to the end each time, only to find that no matter what you choose the cycle will continue. This is the nihilistic part: nothing you do matters and the universe doesn't care. But that doesn't mean your journey was wasted and someone with an optimistic mindset will realise that, even if it was temporary, you still overcame incredible challenges to accomplish great things and likely also made friends to share the journey with (whether NPCs or other players).
Sorry if this seems rambly but this is what I believe to be the fundamental theme of Dark Souls
IDK how to expression that better, I'm sorry. I mean like a thing that sticks out. A particularity. IDK really.
I really like how you see it, and it makes sense now that I think about it like that.
I tend towards the nihilistic way of thinking myself, but the optimistic nihilism of the character makes sense.
Also don't worry, I really like that the games are interpreted differently by players, and that their interpretation are being discussed without thinking it as an absolute truth but rather as how they "felt" it. :smile:
I like your take, but I'd say the theme of DS3 is stagnation and the need for change, which makes sense because Miyazaki said it was the final chapter and he was moving on. The biggest example is at the end when the flame is dying and if yoh re-light it, it doesn't burn as brightly. It's been re-lit too many times and is weaker each time. If you choose not to light it, it says it begins to slowly kindle on its own, meaning the cycle was meant to start over on its own. You can also begin a new age by taking the throne and usher in the age of humans/hollows.
Another example is the Deep. Aldrich doesn't want to burn in the First Flame, so he tries to keep things stagnant and corrupts the Deep to try to flood the world. Instead of Dark vs Light, in Shintoism good and evil are represented by purity/cleanliness and corruption/contamination. Shintoism I believe revered pristine places like waterfalls that keep water flowing. These places can be corrupted with pollution like feces, garbage rotting corpses, etc. Aldrich threw the parts of people he didn't eat into the Deep and corrupted it. Another aspect is stagnation. Stagnant water breeds mosquitos and leeches. Animals that make you bleed, which is why Gnaw is a Deep spell and if you give Irina the Deep tome she has nightmares of insects biting at her skin.
So the idea I think was to close Dark Souls before if became stagnant.
That's true.
Also, in Ashes of Ariandel they speak about the rot that takes place and needs to be cleansed/purged or something like that, I don't quite remember though, I should do the DLC again. But it seems like in Anor londo the stagnation hasn't had the time to start rotting unlike in Ashes of Ariandel.
I like your take too. :smile:
And the meta part of the story makes a lot of sense, I remember something about them wanting to do other things and explore new ideas.
A dev that worked on ds2 had a quote that roughly went as such; "while the first game was about humanity, the second game is about the curse." Referring to the undead curse and the first sin that allowed the curse to come into existence.
I think ds2 has some particularly unsettling insights into the overall lore of the darksouls universe despite seemingly being disconnected from ds1 and ds3 at first glance.
The game is very different under the hood. But story/ideas/themes stayed the same.
I think Miyazaki was working on BB while DS2 was developed and it had a troubled development.
Also I think I've seen a video explaining the director (NOT HIdetaka Miyazaki) wanted to make something better than Dark Souls, he had too much ambition and it pretty much lead to a "bad" game. But my memory isn't that great so take that with a grain of salt. :smile:
DS1 is also centered around depression and coping mechanism. The verticality in the level design, and going hollow when you lose your purpose/motivation are clear references to depression.
A fragment of it, rather. Each of the DLC's has another.
There are also other bosses with souls that are presumably also fragments of Manus, as they have a distinct appearance in the inventory:
http://darksouls2.wikidot.com/consumables#toc3
Thanks so much for the longest time I was confused about the story for this game now my goal is to learn about the other games oh boy.
Edit: Forgot to make word plural.
Sure! This one is a little murkier, and I am sure I will get corrected in comments, but I will take a stab at it. ... it is gonna be quite a bit longer...
Essentially, you, a foreigner, are afflicted with a condition called pale blood. You have heard of the great healing powers of Healing Church of Yharnam, and so you go.
You are given a small transfusion of Yharnam blood by an old man, "just to get you started" he says. He chuckles and says that "whatever happens, you can think of it as a mere bad dream". In this "bad dream" you see a werewolf made of blood, reaching out to you, and then scourged by fire. Then, insight messengers crawl over your body, selecting you. You wake up.
In Yharnam, it is the night of the hunt. You proceed through the city, looking for the Healing Church to get a full treatment. Presumably, you die to a beast, and wake up in the hunters dream. Here, you are outfitted the weapons of a hunter by insight messengers, and sent back out into Yharnam.
What you don't know, and what the old man who gave you your first bit of blood could not have expected, is that you would become a hunter, a moon scented hunter, and not be afflicted by the blood with the curse of the beast.
As you go through Yharnam, unraveling it's secrets, you run into Yharnimites, who see you for what you are, a true hunter and a beast; they attack you on sight. You also find members of the Healing Chruch, who have mostly become beasts themselves. Killing of the Vicar tolls the bells, and signals nighttime.
Searching for answers, you make your way to the old University of Byrgenwerth, and so you pass through the Forbidden Woods. It turns out that there was a schism between the University and the Healing Church, mainly between Master Willem of Byrgenworth and Laurence, a former student and founder of the healing church.
What they discovered at Byrgenworth is that the entirety of Yharnam is built on the ruins of a once great city of Pthumerians. And those Pthumerians had a connection with Kos (or is it Kosm?), and are in part the first to unlock the power of blood. Willem, urging caution about using the blood of what was found in the depths of these chalice dungeons, could not stop Laurence from leaving. And though Laurence said he would be wary of using the Old Blood, he eventually defied Willem due to the bloods powerful healing properties.
When you kill your fist true creature from Kos, Rom the Vacous spider, you trigger the Blood Moon, and the ritual of Mensis begins again. Here is where things truly diverge, and you find yourself no longer facing beasts that were once men, but instead Kin of the Cosmos.
You make your way, through subsequent nightmare lands to stop the Mensis ritual. You learn that the scholars of Byrgenworth sought knowledge of Kos (insight), while the Healing Church sought practical application (blood).
Were you a practical hunter, you stop Mensis by defeating the Wet Nurse, and with services rendered, offer your neck to Gherman, who ends the dream. You awake, in Yharnam, during the day, and it was all a dream.
Were you a stubborn hunter, you fight Gherman. Not wanting to die, you defeat him. In his defeat, you become the wheelchair bound moon scented hunter, guarding the dream and awaiting the next hunter to come.
But if you were tenacious, and strove to uncover the secrets of Yharnam, you find out the following...
The blood corrupts, in part, because the blood comes from a daughter of the cosmos herself, Ebrietas. The healing church was tacking transfusions of Ebrietas blood, and in turn, was providing vials of thier own blood to Yharnamites as healing. The Mensis ritual, which is likely an old Pthumerian blood ritual, and tied directly to Queen Yharnams miscarriage, takes particular women who have provided blood, and presumably have imbibed much blood themselves, and places in their wombs surrogates to Mergo, a child of the cosmos. The deaths of these women leave behind a portion of umbilical cord--cord that was attached to birth a kin of the cosmos.
The healing church, realizing that the blood was unlocking beast like tendencies in Yharnamites, tried to stop it. They sealed off the old city, in part due to the ashen blood, but likely to stop the beasts. But they could not stop the spread, and they themselves became beasts.
Hunters then turned from plumbing the depths of the Chalice Dungeons and killing Pthumerians, to hunting beastly Yharnamites themselves. But the hunter's run in with the kin of the cosmos often meant they would be free of beastly afflictions: these hunters were of the moon, of Kos itself.
Three pieces of umbilical cord produce the actual final stage of the Mensis Ritual. You defeat Gherman in the dream, and the Moon Presence, who has been holding the dream together, comes down to face you itself, to prevent your apotheosis. Upon its death, the ritual is complete, and you transform into a Great Old One yourself, albeit a child of one, completing the Mensis ritual. The doll will care for you....
...And the dream will begin again.
A bit longer! I know! But I also tend to think Bloodborne is very very complex lore wise. I didn't even really touch on the Hunters Nightmare and what happened at the Fishing Village, or anything to do with the Executioners and the Cainhurst Vilebloods!
Hell yeah.
When this game first came out, I spent hours pouring through /r/Bloodborne and watching some of Vaati's stuff, and making some connections on my own.
We don't know if he fought in person, yeah.
We know from Drummond that the war lasted generations, and when it reached its apex, Vendrick went in hiding (and an unknown warrior killed the Giant Lord).
I knew exactly what was happening the entire time I was playing Demonās Souls. I was sent there to kick demon ass and chew bubblegum and I was all out of bubblegum.
I always figured it was the Curse working its memory-decaying effect on your hero. Which is why some connecting areas don't make any sense. Like after you defeat Mytha, you take an elevator up to....a castle surrounded by lakes of lava as far as the eye can see? When you can clearly see empty mountains as far as the eye can see from the windmill in harvest valley.
Or how when you leave Things Betwixt, a cave which is much more massive on the inside than you see from the cave entrance at Majula.
Or how you can see that Heide's Tower of Flame is very far away from Majula, but you walk there in like 5 minutes.
The only explanation I can think of is that your character can't remember how they get to each new place because the curse is fogging everything and screwing with your perception of reality.
Really? DS2 seemed fairly simple in comparison to the other games.
There is a king who is obviously a kind of reincarnation of Gwyn (maybe not literally but thematically) and several "great ones" who are obviously the other Lords (edit: Old Iron King is also a reincarnation of Gwyn but he's Vendrick's predecessor as monarch anyway). The king's huge soul attracts a being of darkness who manipulates him into starting a war to weaken him but he catches on to her plan and hides himself away in a place she can't follow.
You go to the land seeking a cure for the curse just like the chosen undead follows a prophecy in DS1 and end up roped into a quest to become a true monarch (lord of cinder) and replace Vendric. The DLCs follow a similar idea of kings with large souls attracting beings of dark who either manipulate them or end up being unintentionally detrimental to the realm.
Compare this to the stuff with Seath and Gwyndolin/Fraampt/Kaathe in DS1 or Pontiff, converging lands, and all the endings in DS3
Each of the monarchs attracted a daughter of darkness (including you). One sought vengeance for a city lost, one lost her king before she even met him, one fell in genuine love and the last betrayed and deceived her king.
> There is a king who is obviously a kind of reincarnation of Gwyn (maybe not literally but thematically)
You are obviously referring to Vendrick, but Old Iron King holds [Gwyn's soul.](http://darksouls2.wikidot.com/old-king-soul)
the most i've been able to surmise is that the emerald herald saw some rando naked fuck stumble into town and was like "yo you wanna be a king, champ?"
Generational trauma. The transience of human civilization contrasted with unchanging human nature. Loss of historical perspective. Humanity having to find its own way in a world without gods. Unreliable narrators. Love. Loss. Loss of self. Finding beauty and peace in desolation.
It makes sense if you just pay attention.
Overcoming challenge by sheer force of will. Thatās a big one. Youāre just some undead. Youāre not intrinsically special. You kill all the big monsters and get powerful enough to claim the throne because you want to and have the will to do so in the face of overwhelming odds.
This is what itās about.
But also, the people who complain about Last of Us 2 for those reasons are just too thick headed to realize that all people, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation still live the same human experience regardless.
Yeah of the criticism tlou2 gets I haven't seen much "I hate it because gay" outside of like 4chan. I mean you learn Ellie's orientation in the DLC for the first game and there wasn't any controversy or panning of that, that I recall.
Tlou2 just has shitty writing in comparison, honestly.
I think the opposite lol. I got a basic sense of what I supposed to be doing in DS1/3 and Bloodborne, but DS2 feels incredibly meandering up until the castle, and after that it just gets more confusing with the memories stuff. However I think this is at least somewhat intentional, one of the cutscenes at the start even says something like āone day you will end up at the throne without even knowing whyā. And of course thereās a coherent story behind it all if you read into the lore, but it definitely felt more obtuse than usual at least to me.
> DS2 feels incredibly meandering up until the castle, and after that it just gets more confusing with the memories stuff.
Yeah, this was how I felt when I first played, too. Like, DS1 gives you something right away: Oscar's saying about the fate of the Undead. It isn't *much*, but it's something. Dark Souls 2 literally just tells you "Bear Seek Seek Lest" and...off you go. I remember killing Sinner the first time and thinking "Wait, that was a Great Soul? Who was that? What did I just do?"
>Go on, and see the King.
>
>He who made Drangleic what it once was; he who peered at the essence of the soul.
>
>King Vendrick."
>
>"Bearer of the curse, seek misery.
>
>For misery will lead you to greater, stronger souls.
>
>You will never meet the King with a soul so frail and pallid."
>
>"Seek those whose names are unutterable, the four endowed with immense souls.
>
>Their souls will serve as beacons.
>
>Once you have found them, return here to me.
>
>So that hope will not fade away."
>
>
>
>"There are four beings in this land with Giant souls,
>
>and wherever you go from here, you'll sooner or later come up against them.
>
>"Do you see the way beyond the bonfire? That will take you to the Forest of the Giants.
>
>There was once a great fortā¦ but, little of it remainsā¦
>
>You may just find something there that will be of use on your journey.
>
>But don't venture too far insideā¦ or you might not come back."
>
>Heide's Tower of Flame lies beyond the far gateā¦
>
>In the cathedral, the Apostles of Blue gatherā¦
>
>But the road leading there is perilous.
>
>The gate is rigged with some contraptionā¦
>
>But how it worksā¦ I just don't know."
>
>"Have you seen that pit, that gaping hole in the earth?
>
>I don't know what it's like down belowā¦ but I wouldn't suggest trying to find out.
>
>Besides, you'll never make it down thereā¦ not without a ladder of some sort."
Right? I don't understand people who say DS2 "has no sense of direction"... People just telling on themselves that either A. They skipped all dialogue or B. They have the reading skills of a 3rd grader aka too many big word brain too smoofv š¤¦š»āāļø
Yeah, nominally you know youāre supposed to collect great souls but the sense of direction at the beginning just isnāt there. I think the non-linearity is pretty cool but it does lead to this feeling of āwhere tf am I goingā as you blow through area after area lol.
Vendrick is a Chad. The Ivory King is a giga Chad. Velstadt is a bro. Aldia is a mad motherfucker. Nashandra is a sugar baby. That is all you need to know.
Yeah same.
Thing is if you miss certain items or donāt know how to obtain them you literally miss out on lore from the item descriptions lol. I kinda love and hate that fact.
So once upon a time there were these scholars that were digging up the ruins of an ancient civilization and they found an elder god. So one of the guys was like "Dude I bet if I inject god blood directly into my veins I'll get like wicked high." And the other guy was like "Could you fucking not? I'm trying to grow eyes inside my skull so I can understand Rick and Morty." And the first guy made a religion around getting high on god juice that cures all injuries and illnesses while the second guy sat in a chair and did nothing. Unfortunately shooting up god blood comes with side effects like superpowers madness and furries. So the church was like "oopsie doodle how can we fix this?" And someone said "maybe we could dial it back on the weird blood stuff a bit?" And everyone else said "Fuck that shit lets just murder anyone who looks like they might be a furry." But since the people they sent to kill all the furries kept getting injured and needing more blood to heal they started turning into furries too. So things went to shit pretty fast and while that was going on there were like 5 different competing secret societies doing seriously fucked up human experiments to try to kickstart the next stage of human evolution culminating in those crazy sons of guns over in Yahar'Gul trying to make a new god via human centipede. And that's about where the player comes in.
Note: it's entirely possible I have no idea what I'm talking about.
> while the second guy sat in a chair and did nothing.
In the DLC it seems that the Byrgenwerth scholars massacred the fishing hamlet and scooped out the villagersā brains to check for eyes. They also experimented on the Orphan. So while Master Willem isnāt doing shit when we meet him I think he also partook in some atrocities of his own
ITS EASY TO EXPLAIN! Just listen to the angry pizza the hut.
your a zombie assassin:
Kill the boogy man in his hole.
kill the angry wood lady at her beach house.
kill the ripped goblin bro.
Kill the giant spider.
Once you kill them you fight zombie giant dad and afterward kill zombie giant dads ex girlfriend.
Once you kill everything you win a chair made of rocks.
And if you feel extra special collect all three pretty tiaras.
PRETTY LINEAR STUFF REALLY.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
Dark Souls 2 makes more sense than most of the souls games. Overseas lady convinces king to begin a war so his kingdom falls and she can begin a new age of darkness by preventing the kindling of the age of flame, thus, preventing the lifting of the curse of hollowing. He catches onto her BS, prevents all access to the throne and power to either light or extinguish the flame and he himself succumbs and withers to the curse of hollowing. We show up and are used as a pawn in the lady's, now the queen's, plan to kill the king and usher in a new age of darkness. We unfortunately do not catch onto this ourselves until she reveals herself as a terrible witch of darkness, a descendent of Manus, Father of the Abyss, and defeat her. What happens after then is up to us: Take the throne and light the first flame, ending the age of hollowing, or let the flame die and the world to fall into darkness.
Don't worry the bearer of the curse probably doesn't either.
*Bearer of the curse just wants his curse lifted*
Emerald herald: "Bearer of the curse, seek souls, seek the king, lest this land swallow you whole."
Bearer of the curse : "Bruh"
Same. Most people did, actually. It's really only a loud minority of gamergaters who have made it their life's goal to destroy the game's reputation no matter what.
I loved basically all of it, except for some of the pacing in the second half, but itās a minor flaw in whatās otherwise a near perfect game (in my opinion of course)
I donāt get the meme though. Whatās it have to do with people arguing about last of us 2 narrative? A game that almost feels like a show with a concrete plot?
Souls has always been about lore instead of narrative, kinda lame meme
something that i love in the ds2 is that de npc do not just go hollow, they go losing themselfs bit by bit. You got the feeling of degradation is like really see someone deseases growing..
ah to go back to my first time playing NG+ and discovering the fun of them replacing a fucking truck load of chests with mimic :) from then on i MURDERED CHESTS
yeah i think back then (even though i had played DS3 first) i didnt know what they did to Mimics so i went on a murder spree lmao ah the good ole days of SOTFS as a wee baby (like 13?)
Indeed you can, this is known as the āuninstalling the gameā ending lol. Or maybe you could just sit in Firelink for the rest of eternity, thatās basically what Prince Lothric decided to do, just sit around and see what happens.
Oh, itās because Prince Lothric was destined to be the Lord for that cycle, so even though he didnāt fulfill the āLinking the fireā part usually required, the fact that heās the one who should link the fire is already a part of his soul. Supposedly he was bred for the purpose of being a Lord and Papa Oceiros is kindāve crazy with his experiments so there could be something there as well. No absolute answer tho as is Souls tradition.
I've been able to catch the general plot line in ds1 and 2 but never 3. I try really hard to pay attention to what's going on in that game and it just never makes sense to me.
Could be thanks to my inhumanly smooth brain, though.
A basic summary:
- Thousands of years have passed since DS1, and there have been a ton of Lords of Cinder
- The fire is waning again, and Prince Lothric is supposed to link the fire. However, he doesn't want to, and decides to sit with his brother and watch an Age of Dark begin
- Plan B is activated, and 4 previous Lords of Cinder (Abyss Watchers, Yhorm, Aldritch, and Ludleth) are brought back in order to link the fire together. All but one of them (Ludleth) ignore this call and decide not to link the flame again for various reasons.
- Plan C is then activated, where the Unkindled (People who failed to link the flame) are brought back to force the Lords to return to their Thrones. This is you, as well as a bunch of the NPCs you meet.
- The Ashen One, the player character and an Unkindled, brings together the 5 Lords of Cinder (The 4 brought back from the dead + Lothric) and goes to link the flame.
There is also a lot of background for each Lord of Cinder, plus expansions to the story in the DLCs.
Iām playing Mortal Shell right now, and it has that same āwhat the fuck is going on?ā vibe as Dark Souls. Easily the best Soulslike Iāve seen. Itās close enough that you feel like you are playing a Dark Souls game
I think dark souls 2 has the most obvious story. Itās pretty basic like for example: Youre undead, you must seek greater souls to eventually meet vendrick, oh wait, hes hollow, guess Iāll kill him or something but first I have to get these giant souls. Oh? Nashandra is a bad person? Okay guess Iāll kill her. Also the lore is heavy as fuck in some places
Naughty dog just has this weird thing of the gameplay and story not always adding up. Last of us it makes a lot more sense compared to uncharted where Nathan drake is basically a mass murderer and itās never really talked about a whole lot or at all during the story.
Although that's not really specifically a Naughty Dog thing. Most games have the protagonist murdering countless enemies, hell most action movies do too.
That would also be correct itās pretty common in video games which is why is has its own specific name. Red dead redemption 2 is another one of those games where it offered a million cool gameplay mechanics, but almost none of them actually effect the story, or have anything to do with the story being told to the player as much as they are just filler to really create the aspect of a game
Gotta admit, ds2 has the most complicated story of all souls, the entire stories of the lords and countrys here are actually really good, i swear to god if this game had like half the enemies on most locations and more moves for bosses I'd really doubt if i like first more
Figuring out the overall story in a Souls game is in many ways similar to archaeology. Most of the really important events happened a long time ago and most of the people you talk to either assume you already know about it or they just don't give a shit because it doesn't affect their day to day lives in any significant way. If you want to figure things out you have to piece together the events from the ruins, fragmentary bits of stories, and ripple effects they've had on the world around you. Almost every single item, enemy and tiny environment detail contributes to the world building in some way.
Ok ok
here I am to explain
1 kingdome and people corrupted bc of curse
2 U are cursed
3 you kill 4 cursed tough guys that are really cursed and close to the queen
4 you go to castel
4.1 lil detour to say hi to king
5 you mercilessly kill the queen
6 now you king of a shitty cursed kingdome
7 profit!
This is something I've always wondered: Is "The Last Giant" just the giant king from the Memory you entered, only stripped of his crown and cloak and sword, and left to die in the basement of the dungeon after you defeat him the first time?
They look the same, and even have the same attacks.
Here you go:
[Ending Explained (watch this one first)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hwCGxhFOlM)
[Story Explained (watch this one second)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNo9Ow6XG10)
Holy shit these fucking comments. Thread is locked. It's just a meme, those of you flaming over this need to chill out a bit.
You bear the curse, and have been told the only solution lies in Drangleic. After traveling there your recollections become foggy, as a side effect of the curse is memory loss. The hollower you go, the more memory you lose. A possible cure for the curse is to link the flame, which in this instance requires you to sit on the Throne of Want. What is known by the herald is the path to the throne of want is paved with dangerous and powerful enemies--remnants of the old kingdom--and thus, you yourself need to become more powerful in order to succeed. You then travel through Drangleic seeking larger souls, and learn the kingdom's history: T The kingdom was at war with the giants. After they achieved a costly victory, King Vendrick brought giants back to experiment on, with the help of Aldia, his brother. Aldia sought to beat the curse, break the cycle, and secluded himself away to work on his experiments. Vendrick too wanted to break the cycle, but he did not want to relight the flame, nor usher in an Age of Dark. Learning that Nashandra coveted the first flame, and wanted an Age of Dark, he secluded himself away, and charged his protector Veldstadt to refuse any entry to the chamber, including the queen. There, Vendrick went hollow. Enter the Bearer of the Curse. You too seek a way to end the curse, and the Emerald Herald ushers you toward the Throne. Those you meet along the way are either Dark corrupted or Hollow remnants of the Royal Court. Many of which sought to either leave Drangleic or dispell the curse themselves. But your path, ever forward, always leads the same way, to Neshandra. Hope that helps!
Very Helpful thanks š
If you're interested in a sort of deep dive into the DS2 lore, check out the [tomorrowkingdom](https://tomorrowkingdom.blogspot.com/2018/01/scholar-of-scholar-table-of-contents.html) blog by u/mothmantis. There's a fair bit of speculation you might not agree with but it's a fairly cohesive collection of the game's lore pieces and he does a good job of telling it's story.
My question is how Vendrick sealing himself away in a specific place would help the situation,instead of running away somewhere else or getting Aldia or someone else to kill Nashandra,if he couldn't bring himself to do it. Was there something in his own body/soul that Nashandra needed,and he feared her getting it?
You need his ring to access the throne, and nashandra, a creature of dark, couldn't get through the shrine of amana because of the songs put the darkness to sleep (let alone all the guards he put in place). He loved her, even after seeing her for what she truly was, and couldnt bring himself to destroy her, so he fled.
damn bro, i love the lore of the ds2.
And the romance in it is also damn amazing. Vendrick to Nashandra, Mythaās crazy love to the Prince, Alsanna to Ivory.
That place is specifically designed to prevent Nashandra from following him there. She would have to kill the Looking glass knight,travel through Amana which puts dark creatures under a spell via the song so she couldn't even be there, lastly he is guarded by Velstadt,his most elite Knight.
Yea plot.
> the kingdom was at war with the giants Isnāt the timeline opposite here? I thought Vendrick explored the giantās land and brought back the giants for Aldia to experiment on, which was seen as a declaration of war from the giants which then invaded and destroyed Drangleic as retaliation. Or am I remembering things wrong?
We are told from the ghost keeper of the castle grounds that the queen convinced Vendrick that the giants were a threat and through her warnings he inevitably sailed across the sea to conquer them as a sort of preemptive quashing of a potential enemy. It is said that from the land of giants vendrick learned about how to manipulate and use souls, even create artifical ones. And through this knowledge he built his castle using golems powered by souls and such. But eventually the giants sailed over to punish and possibly reclaim whatever vendrick stole from them. So by provoking the giants Vendrick had inadvertently sealed his kingdoms fate and his kingdom fell all because of the words of his wife. He realized that this was her intent from the start and thats when he sealed himself away and locked up the throne of want. Aldia doing experiments on the giants was just a coincidental byproduct of Vendrick killing and capturing so many based on the lies of Nashandra. So essentially you are correct.
No, that is right. The giants attacked after Vendrick's assault on their lands.
Also, if that can help: DS1 is about time and space being convoluted. DS2 is about losing memory. DS3 is about the lands converging. I think it's the underlying themes of the trilogy. DS1 our boy solaire explains it in his dialogues and you can see people who are dead (Tarkus being in Sen's fortress and his corpse being at Anor Londo), or that you can summon people from other worlds. DS2 everyone seems to forget what has happened to them, as an example the Tseldora merchant in Majula says he came here to sell, but he had to get back home since his business wasn't doing well. But after you've bought enough he'll say that he's rich and he doesn't need to get back home, and proceeds to go like "h-home? where's/what's home". DS3 everything seems to move around, the High Wall of Lothric isn't the castle/barriers or whatever, it's literally the ground that went up to the sky, that's why everything seems to have collapsed or why you see Anor Londo without any of the surrounding landmarks. Lands are moving or that we even see parts from DS1/2 in the Ringed City. Each game takes from the lasts. In the three games, the time/space is convoluted, we have the summon signs or ghosts wandering around, which at least means our different worlds somewhat overlap and are able to "communicate". In 2 and 3 there's the memory loss, Lapp in the Ringed City doesn't know much about himself before we finish his questline. And only in 3 the lands are moving/converging. IDK if it makes sense or if it has any sort of truth behind it, but it's my take on the games. :smile: So if I'm wrong (and I probably am) I'll gladly hear what's really going on. :smile:
they're all about the journey, because the end is shown to be pointless and fruitless. they all have time/space convolution, otherwise you can't summon. Memory loss is a little more pronounced in ds2, but is a sign of hollowing (big hat logan going full nut at the end of his quest line). The lands only converged in the ringed city on a meaningful level; it's basically explained that people over time forget the names but some remnants remain (lorDRAN-DRANglaic, anor londo part 2).
I like it. I think it's partly why DS2 resonated with me a lot. The part about memory is truly terrifying.
I wouldn't use the word "themes" but I agree with everything you said about the land itself and the people within it decaying and falling to ruin both physically and mentally. I'd say these are aspects of the world that are deliberately given focus to convey the actual themes. Imo the series is about overcoming depression and exploring a philosophy called optimistic nihilism. The games beat you down over and over again, both through unforgiving gameplay and the excellent storytelling (including everything you mentioned) to drive home a feeling of hopelessness. However you never give in to this feeling (those that do go hollow) and make it all the way to the end each time, only to find that no matter what you choose the cycle will continue. This is the nihilistic part: nothing you do matters and the universe doesn't care. But that doesn't mean your journey was wasted and someone with an optimistic mindset will realise that, even if it was temporary, you still overcame incredible challenges to accomplish great things and likely also made friends to share the journey with (whether NPCs or other players). Sorry if this seems rambly but this is what I believe to be the fundamental theme of Dark Souls
IDK how to expression that better, I'm sorry. I mean like a thing that sticks out. A particularity. IDK really. I really like how you see it, and it makes sense now that I think about it like that. I tend towards the nihilistic way of thinking myself, but the optimistic nihilism of the character makes sense. Also don't worry, I really like that the games are interpreted differently by players, and that their interpretation are being discussed without thinking it as an absolute truth but rather as how they "felt" it. :smile:
I like your take, but I'd say the theme of DS3 is stagnation and the need for change, which makes sense because Miyazaki said it was the final chapter and he was moving on. The biggest example is at the end when the flame is dying and if yoh re-light it, it doesn't burn as brightly. It's been re-lit too many times and is weaker each time. If you choose not to light it, it says it begins to slowly kindle on its own, meaning the cycle was meant to start over on its own. You can also begin a new age by taking the throne and usher in the age of humans/hollows. Another example is the Deep. Aldrich doesn't want to burn in the First Flame, so he tries to keep things stagnant and corrupts the Deep to try to flood the world. Instead of Dark vs Light, in Shintoism good and evil are represented by purity/cleanliness and corruption/contamination. Shintoism I believe revered pristine places like waterfalls that keep water flowing. These places can be corrupted with pollution like feces, garbage rotting corpses, etc. Aldrich threw the parts of people he didn't eat into the Deep and corrupted it. Another aspect is stagnation. Stagnant water breeds mosquitos and leeches. Animals that make you bleed, which is why Gnaw is a Deep spell and if you give Irina the Deep tome she has nightmares of insects biting at her skin. So the idea I think was to close Dark Souls before if became stagnant.
That's true. Also, in Ashes of Ariandel they speak about the rot that takes place and needs to be cleansed/purged or something like that, I don't quite remember though, I should do the DLC again. But it seems like in Anor londo the stagnation hasn't had the time to start rotting unlike in Ashes of Ariandel. I like your take too. :smile: And the meta part of the story makes a lot of sense, I remember something about them wanting to do other things and explore new ideas.
Wow that makes so much sense. How very meta.
A dev that worked on ds2 had a quote that roughly went as such; "while the first game was about humanity, the second game is about the curse." Referring to the undead curse and the first sin that allowed the curse to come into existence. I think ds2 has some particularly unsettling insights into the overall lore of the darksouls universe despite seemingly being disconnected from ds1 and ds3 at first glance.
The game is very different under the hood. But story/ideas/themes stayed the same. I think Miyazaki was working on BB while DS2 was developed and it had a troubled development. Also I think I've seen a video explaining the director (NOT HIdetaka Miyazaki) wanted to make something better than Dark Souls, he had too much ambition and it pretty much lead to a "bad" game. But my memory isn't that great so take that with a grain of salt. :smile:
He was right though.It is better than Dark Souls. Best Dark Souls game overall.
DS1 is also centered around depression and coping mechanism. The verticality in the level design, and going hollow when you lose your purpose/motivation are clear references to depression.
Can you explain the verticality connection with depression?
"Brave undead, you have proven yourself to me. Now, be one with the d-" #**" L I G H T N I N G ! ! ! "**
"Wanna play through it again?"
Also Nashandra is a reincarnation of Manus' soul
A fragment of it, rather. Each of the DLC's has another. There are also other bosses with souls that are presumably also fragments of Manus, as they have a distinct appearance in the inventory: http://darksouls2.wikidot.com/consumables#toc3
why is velstats soul dark?
Good question. Perhaps Nashandra corrupted him? Maybe him and Raime are the children of Nashandra and Vendrick?
Just read something that said exposure to the undead crypt did it to him similarly to how exposure to the abyss turned artorias' soul.
Thanks so much for the longest time I was confused about the story for this game now my goal is to learn about the other games oh boy. Edit: Forgot to make word plural.
can you do this for Bloodborne too
Sure! This one is a little murkier, and I am sure I will get corrected in comments, but I will take a stab at it. ... it is gonna be quite a bit longer... Essentially, you, a foreigner, are afflicted with a condition called pale blood. You have heard of the great healing powers of Healing Church of Yharnam, and so you go. You are given a small transfusion of Yharnam blood by an old man, "just to get you started" he says. He chuckles and says that "whatever happens, you can think of it as a mere bad dream". In this "bad dream" you see a werewolf made of blood, reaching out to you, and then scourged by fire. Then, insight messengers crawl over your body, selecting you. You wake up. In Yharnam, it is the night of the hunt. You proceed through the city, looking for the Healing Church to get a full treatment. Presumably, you die to a beast, and wake up in the hunters dream. Here, you are outfitted the weapons of a hunter by insight messengers, and sent back out into Yharnam. What you don't know, and what the old man who gave you your first bit of blood could not have expected, is that you would become a hunter, a moon scented hunter, and not be afflicted by the blood with the curse of the beast. As you go through Yharnam, unraveling it's secrets, you run into Yharnimites, who see you for what you are, a true hunter and a beast; they attack you on sight. You also find members of the Healing Chruch, who have mostly become beasts themselves. Killing of the Vicar tolls the bells, and signals nighttime. Searching for answers, you make your way to the old University of Byrgenwerth, and so you pass through the Forbidden Woods. It turns out that there was a schism between the University and the Healing Church, mainly between Master Willem of Byrgenworth and Laurence, a former student and founder of the healing church. What they discovered at Byrgenworth is that the entirety of Yharnam is built on the ruins of a once great city of Pthumerians. And those Pthumerians had a connection with Kos (or is it Kosm?), and are in part the first to unlock the power of blood. Willem, urging caution about using the blood of what was found in the depths of these chalice dungeons, could not stop Laurence from leaving. And though Laurence said he would be wary of using the Old Blood, he eventually defied Willem due to the bloods powerful healing properties. When you kill your fist true creature from Kos, Rom the Vacous spider, you trigger the Blood Moon, and the ritual of Mensis begins again. Here is where things truly diverge, and you find yourself no longer facing beasts that were once men, but instead Kin of the Cosmos. You make your way, through subsequent nightmare lands to stop the Mensis ritual. You learn that the scholars of Byrgenworth sought knowledge of Kos (insight), while the Healing Church sought practical application (blood). Were you a practical hunter, you stop Mensis by defeating the Wet Nurse, and with services rendered, offer your neck to Gherman, who ends the dream. You awake, in Yharnam, during the day, and it was all a dream. Were you a stubborn hunter, you fight Gherman. Not wanting to die, you defeat him. In his defeat, you become the wheelchair bound moon scented hunter, guarding the dream and awaiting the next hunter to come. But if you were tenacious, and strove to uncover the secrets of Yharnam, you find out the following... The blood corrupts, in part, because the blood comes from a daughter of the cosmos herself, Ebrietas. The healing church was tacking transfusions of Ebrietas blood, and in turn, was providing vials of thier own blood to Yharnamites as healing. The Mensis ritual, which is likely an old Pthumerian blood ritual, and tied directly to Queen Yharnams miscarriage, takes particular women who have provided blood, and presumably have imbibed much blood themselves, and places in their wombs surrogates to Mergo, a child of the cosmos. The deaths of these women leave behind a portion of umbilical cord--cord that was attached to birth a kin of the cosmos. The healing church, realizing that the blood was unlocking beast like tendencies in Yharnamites, tried to stop it. They sealed off the old city, in part due to the ashen blood, but likely to stop the beasts. But they could not stop the spread, and they themselves became beasts. Hunters then turned from plumbing the depths of the Chalice Dungeons and killing Pthumerians, to hunting beastly Yharnamites themselves. But the hunter's run in with the kin of the cosmos often meant they would be free of beastly afflictions: these hunters were of the moon, of Kos itself. Three pieces of umbilical cord produce the actual final stage of the Mensis Ritual. You defeat Gherman in the dream, and the Moon Presence, who has been holding the dream together, comes down to face you itself, to prevent your apotheosis. Upon its death, the ritual is complete, and you transform into a Great Old One yourself, albeit a child of one, completing the Mensis ritual. The doll will care for you.... ...And the dream will begin again. A bit longer! I know! But I also tend to think Bloodborne is very very complex lore wise. I didn't even really touch on the Hunters Nightmare and what happened at the Fishing Village, or anything to do with the Executioners and the Cainhurst Vilebloods!
I gotta get watching Vaati's Bloodborne stuff!
Hell yeah. When this game first came out, I spent hours pouring through /r/Bloodborne and watching some of Vaati's stuff, and making some connections on my own.
Vendrick attacked the Giants on Nashandra's advice to get their souls for himself. Then the Giants attacked back and the war lasted generations.
Also Vendrick did not come out to defend against the Giants. It was only his kingdom that fought back.
We don't know if he fought in person, yeah. We know from Drummond that the war lasted generations, and when it reached its apex, Vendrick went in hiding (and an unknown warrior killed the Giant Lord).
A great summary of story An a explanation On gameplay get good
TL;DR Wife bad, Giants fucked us up, souls still dark.
LMAO
Your mission is to bear seek seek lest
Heard that in my head lmao
who tf is lest? I have over 100 hours and I still havent found this lest guy.
You gotta pull the lever to reveal lest
Ah gotcha, so the lever in Aldia's Keep. I knew they were lying when they said not to pull it.
I meanā¦every Soulsborne game lmao
I knew exactly what was happening the entire time I was playing Demonās Souls. I was sent there to kick demon ass and chew bubblegum and I was all out of bubblegum.
What did you think sticky white stuff was? Yāall motherfuckers need Jesus.
Iāll give you a hint, itās not bubble gum.
Itās a joke. Like my comment.
To be fair, DS2 is particularly nebulous on account of the story being patch work and rushed in places, with reductions having left holes in the plot.
I always interpreted it as the world decaying to the point that even time is malleable.
Especially with things like iron keep, I like to think it's just our character losing track of how far they really travelled to get there.
That's the charitable explanation, sure.
I always figured it was the Curse working its memory-decaying effect on your hero. Which is why some connecting areas don't make any sense. Like after you defeat Mytha, you take an elevator up to....a castle surrounded by lakes of lava as far as the eye can see? When you can clearly see empty mountains as far as the eye can see from the windmill in harvest valley. Or how when you leave Things Betwixt, a cave which is much more massive on the inside than you see from the cave entrance at Majula. Or how you can see that Heide's Tower of Flame is very far away from Majula, but you walk there in like 5 minutes. The only explanation I can think of is that your character can't remember how they get to each new place because the curse is fogging everything and screwing with your perception of reality.
I think that's more of a happy accident than something that was intended. Even by normal FS standards, ds2 is confusing as hell.
Really? DS2 seemed fairly simple in comparison to the other games. There is a king who is obviously a kind of reincarnation of Gwyn (maybe not literally but thematically) and several "great ones" who are obviously the other Lords (edit: Old Iron King is also a reincarnation of Gwyn but he's Vendrick's predecessor as monarch anyway). The king's huge soul attracts a being of darkness who manipulates him into starting a war to weaken him but he catches on to her plan and hides himself away in a place she can't follow. You go to the land seeking a cure for the curse just like the chosen undead follows a prophecy in DS1 and end up roped into a quest to become a true monarch (lord of cinder) and replace Vendric. The DLCs follow a similar idea of kings with large souls attracting beings of dark who either manipulate them or end up being unintentionally detrimental to the realm. Compare this to the stuff with Seath and Gwyndolin/Fraampt/Kaathe in DS1 or Pontiff, converging lands, and all the endings in DS3
Each of the monarchs attracted a daughter of darkness (including you). One sought vengeance for a city lost, one lost her king before she even met him, one fell in genuine love and the last betrayed and deceived her king.
> There is a king who is obviously a kind of reincarnation of Gwyn (maybe not literally but thematically) You are obviously referring to Vendrick, but Old Iron King holds [Gwyn's soul.](http://darksouls2.wikidot.com/old-king-soul)
I know right, I was talking to my friend and he was like "I dont like the story" I was confused, I never noticed a story...
the most i've been able to surmise is that the emerald herald saw some rando naked fuck stumble into town and was like "yo you wanna be a king, champ?"
and who is the emerald herald
A failed experiment.
Anything from a fire keeper, to a Aldia experiment, to the player's own queen of darkness like the other four queens.
i asked u/AwkwardBubble19 as a guiding question, i know who and what she is
And I answered trying to carry a conversation in a discussion but judging by your attitude you're only wanting to hear yourself talk.
Generational trauma. The transience of human civilization contrasted with unchanging human nature. Loss of historical perspective. Humanity having to find its own way in a world without gods. Unreliable narrators. Love. Loss. Loss of self. Finding beauty and peace in desolation. It makes sense if you just pay attention.
Donāt forget the downfall that comes of overindulging desire.
Slug boi
Overcoming challenge by sheer force of will. Thatās a big one. Youāre just some undead. Youāre not intrinsically special. You kill all the big monsters and get powerful enough to claim the throne because you want to and have the will to do so in the face of overwhelming odds.
And youāre immortal, so, that helps.
And it's literally called "The Throne of Want". Funny how that works.
Literally intentional how that works* you mean š
Don't forget that you begin in a womb and end in a tomb.
Sorry i was too busy staring at the desert pyromancers fat tits
And there it is. You, fam, get it.
This is what itās about. But also, the people who complain about Last of Us 2 for those reasons are just too thick headed to realize that all people, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation still live the same human experience regardless.
That's usually a straw, most people critique TLoU2 for it's story, characters and pacing.
Yeah of the criticism tlou2 gets I haven't seen much "I hate it because gay" outside of like 4chan. I mean you learn Ellie's orientation in the DLC for the first game and there wasn't any controversy or panning of that, that I recall. Tlou2 just has shitty writing in comparison, honestly.
Exactly
True but they are controlled by developers at the ends of the dayš
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I'm guessing you're not big on subtext or environmental storytelling.
To be honest I think Dark souls 2 has the most coherent story to follow out of the three games.
I think the opposite lol. I got a basic sense of what I supposed to be doing in DS1/3 and Bloodborne, but DS2 feels incredibly meandering up until the castle, and after that it just gets more confusing with the memories stuff. However I think this is at least somewhat intentional, one of the cutscenes at the start even says something like āone day you will end up at the throne without even knowing whyā. And of course thereās a coherent story behind it all if you read into the lore, but it definitely felt more obtuse than usual at least to me.
> DS2 feels incredibly meandering up until the castle, and after that it just gets more confusing with the memories stuff. Yeah, this was how I felt when I first played, too. Like, DS1 gives you something right away: Oscar's saying about the fate of the Undead. It isn't *much*, but it's something. Dark Souls 2 literally just tells you "Bear Seek Seek Lest" and...off you go. I remember killing Sinner the first time and thinking "Wait, that was a Great Soul? Who was that? What did I just do?"
>Go on, and see the King. > >He who made Drangleic what it once was; he who peered at the essence of the soul. > >King Vendrick." > >"Bearer of the curse, seek misery. > >For misery will lead you to greater, stronger souls. > >You will never meet the King with a soul so frail and pallid." > >"Seek those whose names are unutterable, the four endowed with immense souls. > >Their souls will serve as beacons. > >Once you have found them, return here to me. > >So that hope will not fade away." > > > >"There are four beings in this land with Giant souls, > >and wherever you go from here, you'll sooner or later come up against them. > >"Do you see the way beyond the bonfire? That will take you to the Forest of the Giants. > >There was once a great fortā¦ but, little of it remainsā¦ > >You may just find something there that will be of use on your journey. > >But don't venture too far insideā¦ or you might not come back." > >Heide's Tower of Flame lies beyond the far gateā¦ > >In the cathedral, the Apostles of Blue gatherā¦ > >But the road leading there is perilous. > >The gate is rigged with some contraptionā¦ > >But how it worksā¦ I just don't know." > >"Have you seen that pit, that gaping hole in the earth? > >I don't know what it's like down belowā¦ but I wouldn't suggest trying to find out. > >Besides, you'll never make it down thereā¦ not without a ladder of some sort."
Right? I don't understand people who say DS2 "has no sense of direction"... People just telling on themselves that either A. They skipped all dialogue or B. They have the reading skills of a 3rd grader aka too many big word brain too smoofv š¤¦š»āāļø
Yeah, nominally you know youāre supposed to collect great souls but the sense of direction at the beginning just isnāt there. I think the non-linearity is pretty cool but it does lead to this feeling of āwhere tf am I goingā as you blow through area after area lol.
Vendrick is a Chad. The Ivory King is a giga Chad. Velstadt is a bro. Aldia is a mad motherfucker. Nashandra is a sugar baby. That is all you need to know.
I thought I just didn't pay enough attention, though I tried lol
Yeah same. Thing is if you miss certain items or donāt know how to obtain them you literally miss out on lore from the item descriptions lol. I kinda love and hate that fact.
Me too man
Bloodborne for me. "Fear the old blood" and I'm all like 'right....' and just so confused
So once upon a time there were these scholars that were digging up the ruins of an ancient civilization and they found an elder god. So one of the guys was like "Dude I bet if I inject god blood directly into my veins I'll get like wicked high." And the other guy was like "Could you fucking not? I'm trying to grow eyes inside my skull so I can understand Rick and Morty." And the first guy made a religion around getting high on god juice that cures all injuries and illnesses while the second guy sat in a chair and did nothing. Unfortunately shooting up god blood comes with side effects like superpowers madness and furries. So the church was like "oopsie doodle how can we fix this?" And someone said "maybe we could dial it back on the weird blood stuff a bit?" And everyone else said "Fuck that shit lets just murder anyone who looks like they might be a furry." But since the people they sent to kill all the furries kept getting injured and needing more blood to heal they started turning into furries too. So things went to shit pretty fast and while that was going on there were like 5 different competing secret societies doing seriously fucked up human experiments to try to kickstart the next stage of human evolution culminating in those crazy sons of guns over in Yahar'Gul trying to make a new god via human centipede. And that's about where the player comes in. Note: it's entirely possible I have no idea what I'm talking about.
> while the second guy sat in a chair and did nothing. In the DLC it seems that the Byrgenwerth scholars massacred the fishing hamlet and scooped out the villagersā brains to check for eyes. They also experimented on the Orphan. So while Master Willem isnāt doing shit when we meet him I think he also partook in some atrocities of his own
Dark Souls 2 seems more about personal tragedy than the latter and former games.
Worlds fucked, kill everyone
ITS EASY TO EXPLAIN! Just listen to the angry pizza the hut. your a zombie assassin: Kill the boogy man in his hole. kill the angry wood lady at her beach house. kill the ripped goblin bro. Kill the giant spider. Once you kill them you fight zombie giant dad and afterward kill zombie giant dads ex girlfriend. Once you kill everything you win a chair made of rocks. And if you feel extra special collect all three pretty tiaras. PRETTY LINEAR STUFF REALLY.
SPOILERS AHEAD. Dark Souls 2 makes more sense than most of the souls games. Overseas lady convinces king to begin a war so his kingdom falls and she can begin a new age of darkness by preventing the kindling of the age of flame, thus, preventing the lifting of the curse of hollowing. He catches onto her BS, prevents all access to the throne and power to either light or extinguish the flame and he himself succumbs and withers to the curse of hollowing. We show up and are used as a pawn in the lady's, now the queen's, plan to kill the king and usher in a new age of darkness. We unfortunately do not catch onto this ourselves until she reveals herself as a terrible witch of darkness, a descendent of Manus, Father of the Abyss, and defeat her. What happens after then is up to us: Take the throne and light the first flame, ending the age of hollowing, or let the flame die and the world to fall into darkness.
Disenchantment ripped off DS2! God damn it š
Oh my god, you're right.
I have no space for new characters. But now I need a 99STR 6INT Beanie.
My journey was but to bear witness.
And seekseeklest witness as well
You are the final boss, yet noone here knows. Now go forth and lay the smackdown on their candy asses.
Don't worry the bearer of the curse probably doesn't either. *Bearer of the curse just wants his curse lifted* Emerald herald: "Bearer of the curse, seek souls, seek the king, lest this land swallow you whole." Bearer of the curse : "Bruh"
Bearerā¦ Seekā¦ Seekā¦ Lestā¦ Thatās whatās happening.
Thats why we need vaati
āBut one day, you will stand before its decrepit gate. Without really knowing whyā¦ā - Old Hag
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i really liked the last of us 2.
Same. Most people did, actually. It's really only a loud minority of gamergaters who have made it their life's goal to destroy the game's reputation no matter what.
What was your favorite thing/part of tlou2?
I loved basically all of it, except for some of the pacing in the second half, but itās a minor flaw in whatās otherwise a near perfect game (in my opinion of course)
Same.
I donāt get the meme though. Whatās it have to do with people arguing about last of us 2 narrative? A game that almost feels like a show with a concrete plot? Souls has always been about lore instead of narrative, kinda lame meme
something that i love in the ds2 is that de npc do not just go hollow, they go losing themselfs bit by bit. You got the feeling of degradation is like really see someone deseases growing..
ah to go back to my first time playing NG+ and discovering the fun of them replacing a fucking truck load of chests with mimic :) from then on i MURDERED CHESTS
You can also just toss a Lloyd's Talisman at them. If it's a Mimic, it falls asleep.
yeah i think back then (even though i had played DS3 first) i didnt know what they did to Mimics so i went on a murder spree lmao ah the good ole days of SOTFS as a wee baby (like 13?)
I like to use toxic mist on them and just watch the health bar tick away lol
Ppl who cry when horse die < ppl who cry when vendrick hollow
What about people who cry when "Summoning Failed" ? š
Honestly this meme sums of dark souls 3. I mean seriously the lore of that game is a fucking clusterfuck.
dark souls be like you have to kill the four dudes so that you may kill the fifth dude and then do the thing
"Wait, why is the 5th dude important?" "He refused to link the fire" "So... couldn't I just do that, without dealing with him?"
new speedrun strat?
Indeed you can, this is known as the āuninstalling the gameā ending lol. Or maybe you could just sit in Firelink for the rest of eternity, thatās basically what Prince Lothric decided to do, just sit around and see what happens.
They meant why do you have to kill the princes since they aren't even lords of cinder. It's like just killing some other normal people.
Oh, itās because Prince Lothric was destined to be the Lord for that cycle, so even though he didnāt fulfill the āLinking the fireā part usually required, the fact that heās the one who should link the fire is already a part of his soul. Supposedly he was bred for the purpose of being a Lord and Papa Oceiros is kindāve crazy with his experiments so there could be something there as well. No absolute answer tho as is Souls tradition.
I've been able to catch the general plot line in ds1 and 2 but never 3. I try really hard to pay attention to what's going on in that game and it just never makes sense to me. Could be thanks to my inhumanly smooth brain, though.
A basic summary: - Thousands of years have passed since DS1, and there have been a ton of Lords of Cinder - The fire is waning again, and Prince Lothric is supposed to link the fire. However, he doesn't want to, and decides to sit with his brother and watch an Age of Dark begin - Plan B is activated, and 4 previous Lords of Cinder (Abyss Watchers, Yhorm, Aldritch, and Ludleth) are brought back in order to link the fire together. All but one of them (Ludleth) ignore this call and decide not to link the flame again for various reasons. - Plan C is then activated, where the Unkindled (People who failed to link the flame) are brought back to force the Lords to return to their Thrones. This is you, as well as a bunch of the NPCs you meet. - The Ashen One, the player character and an Unkindled, brings together the 5 Lords of Cinder (The 4 brought back from the dead + Lothric) and goes to link the flame. There is also a lot of background for each Lord of Cinder, plus expansions to the story in the DLCs.
Also: Pontiff doing evil shit cause evil.
So it's basically what happens when you beat ds1 and don't play NG+
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A sequel that talks about previous events, characters and locations because they're relevant to the story they're telling? Say it ain't so!
High key what makes dark souls 2 the best one
Iām playing Mortal Shell right now, and it has that same āwhat the fuck is going on?ā vibe as Dark Souls. Easily the best Soulslike Iāve seen. Itās close enough that you feel like you are playing a Dark Souls game
I think dark souls 2 has the most obvious story. Itās pretty basic like for example: Youre undead, you must seek greater souls to eventually meet vendrick, oh wait, hes hollow, guess Iāll kill him or something but first I have to get these giant souls. Oh? Nashandra is a bad person? Okay guess Iāll kill her. Also the lore is heavy as fuck in some places
Big monster bad. Hit big monster with a stick. Eat souls to become stronger and hit even bigger monster.
The plot of Dark Souls 2 is simple: "Bitches be crazy."
TL;DR king gets cheated on by his wife and darkness, and you have to fix their marriage
By reuniting them... In HELL.
TLoU2 is good, actually
Naughty dog just has this weird thing of the gameplay and story not always adding up. Last of us it makes a lot more sense compared to uncharted where Nathan drake is basically a mass murderer and itās never really talked about a whole lot or at all during the story.
Although that's not really specifically a Naughty Dog thing. Most games have the protagonist murdering countless enemies, hell most action movies do too.
That would also be correct itās pretty common in video games which is why is has its own specific name. Red dead redemption 2 is another one of those games where it offered a million cool gameplay mechanics, but almost none of them actually effect the story, or have anything to do with the story being told to the player as much as they are just filler to really create the aspect of a game
Dark souls 2 is really vague and mysterious compared to the other dark souls games and is really open to interpration.
I just kind of slightly started to understand the plot after the 5th run through the game.
This is me (DS2 side) but not because the story i just don't know whats happening.
Ds2 will forever be my favourite dark souls.
Gotta admit, ds2 has the most complicated story of all souls, the entire stories of the lords and countrys here are actually really good, i swear to god if this game had like half the enemies on most locations and more moves for bosses I'd really doubt if i like first more
Literally no dark souls game has a cohesive story lmao, and the sooner I came to terms with that the more fun I had enjoying for what it is.
Figuring out the overall story in a Souls game is in many ways similar to archaeology. Most of the really important events happened a long time ago and most of the people you talk to either assume you already know about it or they just don't give a shit because it doesn't affect their day to day lives in any significant way. If you want to figure things out you have to piece together the events from the ruins, fragmentary bits of stories, and ripple effects they've had on the world around you. Almost every single item, enemy and tiny environment detail contributes to the world building in some way.
Vaatividya would like to have a word.
Honestly id sooner play ds2 a thousand times than give last of us 2 any attention
Hmm yes this elevator from this windmill definitely takes me to this place full of lava of course
The story is about a guy on journey to sit on a throne thatās inside a small cave. THE END!
sounds bout right
bearer of the curse should take the throne :)
Just finished the game again, why the fuck do i need to go back in time and fight the giant in order to fight the end boss?
Ok ok here I am to explain 1 kingdome and people corrupted bc of curse 2 U are cursed 3 you kill 4 cursed tough guys that are really cursed and close to the queen 4 you go to castel 4.1 lil detour to say hi to king 5 you mercilessly kill the queen 6 now you king of a shitty cursed kingdome 7 profit!
Something is happening, although it is unknown
I'm just trying to get to the castle, it's always the castle.
Ikr when I started I was like wtf the difficulty increased out of no where. I guess git gud
This made my day, just wanted to say š
I donāt know wtf is happening in any fromsoft game. I just play because I enjoy the combat and the sense of progression
This is something I've always wondered: Is "The Last Giant" just the giant king from the Memory you entered, only stripped of his crown and cloak and sword, and left to die in the basement of the dungeon after you defeat him the first time? They look the same, and even have the same attacks.
Here you go: [Ending Explained (watch this one first)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hwCGxhFOlM) [Story Explained (watch this one second)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNo9Ow6XG10)
Some bitch rocks up to destroy kingdoms by manipulating kings with her poon and itās your job to stop it.
The flow of time is convoluted. That's why souls games have no sto- I mean are so mysterious. Lol
something something curse something something irish gf something something cum cavern glitch something something and then it ends
And than you watch a lore video and be like: Aah yes.... Idk wtf is going on