This review contains spoilers
DLC is still a relatively new concept in the world of gaming. It's been around for several gaming generations and is generated consistently for most modern video games. I guess there still isn't a concrete purpose for DLC content, or at least there isn't a strong consensus for why it exists. Is it to artificially prolong the longevity of a game to keep people playing it? Is it cheaper to produce than a full sequel? Is it to add content to a game as an afterthought? All the same, it's not a simple update. DLC still costs money. It's not the price of a full game, but everyone always feels cheapened when they don't get their money's worth. Great DLC should expand on the base game while having its own merits. It shouldn't feel tacked on or like the developers are tricked into buying a piece of the full game separately. Dark Souls: Artorias of the Abyss is definitely not a cheap add-on. It's an exceptional portion of the game. Some even say it makes up for the lackluster second half of this game. I'm not one of these people, but it stands up with some of the best areas, bosses, and lore building from the base game.
To access the DLC content, you must do a few extra steps in the base game. Off to the side of the Darkroot Basin where you fought the hydra, there is a crystal golem on the water. The only difference between this one and the ones at the base of the area is that this one is orange. Once you defeat it, a woman named Dusk appears, thanking you for freeing her from her prison (the orange golem you just defeated, if that wasn't clear). She claims to be a princess from a far-off land and from a time long, long ago, and she hopes that you will aid her in helping her land. Once that is done, you must kill a strangely placed crystal golem in the Duke's Archives to acquire an amulet. Once you have that, you return to the same place in Darkroot Basin and find a strange purple wormhole where Dusk once was. Once you approach it, a hand pulls you into the wormhole, where you are transported to the mysterious land of Oolacile.
Immediately as you warp to Oolacile, you are greeted by a boss. If there is anything that would make a Dark Souls DLC worth your money, it would certainly be the bosses. Fortunately, each boss in this DLC is a grand titan starting with the Sanctuary Guardian. There are no gimmicks or artificial gank bosses, only mighty foes that will test your skills to their limits. The Sanctuary Guardian is fast and has an arsenal of skills ranging from long-range lightning to short-range poisoning. He's quite the challenging foe and a great way for the DLC to begin.
Oolacile is very strange. Places like the Royal Wood feel like something out of a Lewis Carroll novel or from a quirky 1970s progressive rock album. I feel like Genesis-era Peter Gabriel would sing about the disjointed tin men that come at you with pitchforks and hedge clippers. The Royal Wood is also as dense as Darkroot Garden and has an unnatural feel. The sun is (literally) setting on Oolacile, but the light isn't reflected on any area of the Royal Wood. It's like an ominous setup for the darkness to come.
When you are playing the base game of Dark Souls, you get the impression that the depleted land of Lordran was once a mighty kingdom. When you explore it, it is obviously past the prime of its former glory, and the game revolves around the premise of you extinguishing Lordran step by step to mercifully put an end to everything. Between the glory days of Lordran and its more barren days of decay, there is a time in the middle that isn't explored: the point when everything started to go to shit. It is set in a time that hasn't quite reached the point of layers of inexorable despair stacked on one another. This is a time when at least people had a sense of hope that everything would patch itself up nicely. However, Artorias, the hope of this world and the character in the DLC's title is your next boss.
Remember the giant sword from the Sif fight in the base game? Remember how there was a giant gravestone? Well, it turns out that the gravestone and the sword both belong to the grand knight Artorias. During the time of the DLC, he was a strong, courageous knight who confronted Manus, the father of the abyss and the cause of the darkness surrounding Oolacile. If there's any indication that he failed to stop the abyss, he's skewering an Oolacile citizen with his mammoth of a sword when you encounter him. He also emits an oozy, darkish purple glow and roars like a beast when he sees you. Whatever force the abyss is, his presence makes it seem terrifying. Artorias the great warrior is long gone, and now you must put him down. It's not an easy task, however. When you fight Artorias, you'll soon learn why everyone relied on him to save them. His attacks do a ton of damage, and he's as relentless as Gwyn. It's a great fight that will test your patience and reflexes.
You might notice that the progression in AotA is awfully linear compared to the base game. The only exception lies in the one optional boss, Black Dragon Kalameet. You encounter Kalameet once in the Royal Wood as he establishes his gigantic, looming presence. To make him more formidable, the giant Gough gives more insight into his legend and states that even Gwyn never dared to fuck with Kalameet. That's how fearsome he is. Even though all of this is meant to intimidate you, you can fight the legendary black dragon. After all, you want to get your money's worth out of the DLC, right? Taking him down isn't that simple. Kalameet is so strong that Gough needs to wound him by shooting him out of the sky with a gigantic arrow before you can fight him (which is the coolest moment in the game). You then find a route off the beaten path and see Kalameet emerging from the waterfall with a limp. Thank god for Gough because even when he's wounded, Kalameet still proves to be the hardest fight in the game. He's unpredictable, fast on the ground and in the air, and his magic is almost as unavoidable as the Four Kings. He also has this move where he lifts you up with telekinetic power that makes you take double the damage. If he successfully executes this move on you, it's time to restart. It's really something that the only optional boss of the DLC is also the most difficult in the entire game. It's almost a test to see which Dark Souls players are the most hardcore, the ones that will endure the most pain even when they don't have to.
The epicenter of the calamity in Oolacile resides in the Township. The citizens have morphed into what can only be described as emaciated apes that look like someone with trypophobia's worst nightmare. They are a little more deranged and spunky than the pitiable hollow soldiers, so I guess this means that curse that brands them is a relatively new one. Also, like the undead soldiers, their strength lies in overwhelming you as a group. The sorcerers are a different story. Their purple magic meteor spell is guaranteed to take out more than 80% of your health if it hits you, and I swear to god it sometimes homes in on you. The worst part is that these bastards cackle every time they kill you. They are definitely my least favorite part of the DLC. The Township is a long endurance test where you will encounter hoards of both of these enemies at every single corner.
The Chasm of the Abyss caps off the DLC at the bottom of Oolacile. It's another dark area after a tiring slew of dark areas. Unlike those areas, the darkness isn't a negative aspect. The darkness here gives the area a sublimely creepy and ominous feeling. It also helps that this level is short, and the only enemies are slow walking shadows (with a few enemies from the Township). At the pits of the Chasm lies Manus, the father of the abyss. Everything about his fight makes you feel trapped. The arena is suspended above total darkness, and Manus is so intimidating that it never feels as if you're far from him enough for comfort. The only indication of how close you are to him is his multiple bulging red eyes. Nevertheless, he is my favorite (solo) boss in the game. As perilous as his fight is, he's very learnable. He is somehow a challenge of your strength and endurance without ever seeming unfair. After vanquishing the scourge of Oolacile, you'd expect the skies to clear up and have a celebration. That is, you'd expect this from any other game that wasn't Dark Souls. Princess Dusk appears in the arena, lying on the ground, weeping inconsolably. She is surrounded by nothing but darkness, and it seems like even though the menace is gone, it didn't matter at the end of the day. The harrowing doom that surrounds her kingdom cannot be stopped, and it will only worsen. It's a very devastating scene to end on. It almost makes me feel bad that I can teleport out of here back to the base game.
Dark Souls: Artorias of the Abyss is practically the best DLC content. I'm not speaking in terms of the series but in terms of DLC content in general. The content provided here is just as solid as anything from the already fantastic base game, and it feels totally separated from it all the same. The levels, bosses, and world-building are all incredible, making this worth every cent. It's almost as if having the DLC is essential for any Dark Souls experience.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com/
To access the DLC content, you must do a few extra steps in the base game. Off to the side of the Darkroot Basin where you fought the hydra, there is a crystal golem on the water. The only difference between this one and the ones at the base of the area is that this one is orange. Once you defeat it, a woman named Dusk appears, thanking you for freeing her from her prison (the orange golem you just defeated, if that wasn't clear). She claims to be a princess from a far-off land and from a time long, long ago, and she hopes that you will aid her in helping her land. Once that is done, you must kill a strangely placed crystal golem in the Duke's Archives to acquire an amulet. Once you have that, you return to the same place in Darkroot Basin and find a strange purple wormhole where Dusk once was. Once you approach it, a hand pulls you into the wormhole, where you are transported to the mysterious land of Oolacile.
Immediately as you warp to Oolacile, you are greeted by a boss. If there is anything that would make a Dark Souls DLC worth your money, it would certainly be the bosses. Fortunately, each boss in this DLC is a grand titan starting with the Sanctuary Guardian. There are no gimmicks or artificial gank bosses, only mighty foes that will test your skills to their limits. The Sanctuary Guardian is fast and has an arsenal of skills ranging from long-range lightning to short-range poisoning. He's quite the challenging foe and a great way for the DLC to begin.
Oolacile is very strange. Places like the Royal Wood feel like something out of a Lewis Carroll novel or from a quirky 1970s progressive rock album. I feel like Genesis-era Peter Gabriel would sing about the disjointed tin men that come at you with pitchforks and hedge clippers. The Royal Wood is also as dense as Darkroot Garden and has an unnatural feel. The sun is (literally) setting on Oolacile, but the light isn't reflected on any area of the Royal Wood. It's like an ominous setup for the darkness to come.
When you are playing the base game of Dark Souls, you get the impression that the depleted land of Lordran was once a mighty kingdom. When you explore it, it is obviously past the prime of its former glory, and the game revolves around the premise of you extinguishing Lordran step by step to mercifully put an end to everything. Between the glory days of Lordran and its more barren days of decay, there is a time in the middle that isn't explored: the point when everything started to go to shit. It is set in a time that hasn't quite reached the point of layers of inexorable despair stacked on one another. This is a time when at least people had a sense of hope that everything would patch itself up nicely. However, Artorias, the hope of this world and the character in the DLC's title is your next boss.
Remember the giant sword from the Sif fight in the base game? Remember how there was a giant gravestone? Well, it turns out that the gravestone and the sword both belong to the grand knight Artorias. During the time of the DLC, he was a strong, courageous knight who confronted Manus, the father of the abyss and the cause of the darkness surrounding Oolacile. If there's any indication that he failed to stop the abyss, he's skewering an Oolacile citizen with his mammoth of a sword when you encounter him. He also emits an oozy, darkish purple glow and roars like a beast when he sees you. Whatever force the abyss is, his presence makes it seem terrifying. Artorias the great warrior is long gone, and now you must put him down. It's not an easy task, however. When you fight Artorias, you'll soon learn why everyone relied on him to save them. His attacks do a ton of damage, and he's as relentless as Gwyn. It's a great fight that will test your patience and reflexes.
You might notice that the progression in AotA is awfully linear compared to the base game. The only exception lies in the one optional boss, Black Dragon Kalameet. You encounter Kalameet once in the Royal Wood as he establishes his gigantic, looming presence. To make him more formidable, the giant Gough gives more insight into his legend and states that even Gwyn never dared to fuck with Kalameet. That's how fearsome he is. Even though all of this is meant to intimidate you, you can fight the legendary black dragon. After all, you want to get your money's worth out of the DLC, right? Taking him down isn't that simple. Kalameet is so strong that Gough needs to wound him by shooting him out of the sky with a gigantic arrow before you can fight him (which is the coolest moment in the game). You then find a route off the beaten path and see Kalameet emerging from the waterfall with a limp. Thank god for Gough because even when he's wounded, Kalameet still proves to be the hardest fight in the game. He's unpredictable, fast on the ground and in the air, and his magic is almost as unavoidable as the Four Kings. He also has this move where he lifts you up with telekinetic power that makes you take double the damage. If he successfully executes this move on you, it's time to restart. It's really something that the only optional boss of the DLC is also the most difficult in the entire game. It's almost a test to see which Dark Souls players are the most hardcore, the ones that will endure the most pain even when they don't have to.
The epicenter of the calamity in Oolacile resides in the Township. The citizens have morphed into what can only be described as emaciated apes that look like someone with trypophobia's worst nightmare. They are a little more deranged and spunky than the pitiable hollow soldiers, so I guess this means that curse that brands them is a relatively new one. Also, like the undead soldiers, their strength lies in overwhelming you as a group. The sorcerers are a different story. Their purple magic meteor spell is guaranteed to take out more than 80% of your health if it hits you, and I swear to god it sometimes homes in on you. The worst part is that these bastards cackle every time they kill you. They are definitely my least favorite part of the DLC. The Township is a long endurance test where you will encounter hoards of both of these enemies at every single corner.
The Chasm of the Abyss caps off the DLC at the bottom of Oolacile. It's another dark area after a tiring slew of dark areas. Unlike those areas, the darkness isn't a negative aspect. The darkness here gives the area a sublimely creepy and ominous feeling. It also helps that this level is short, and the only enemies are slow walking shadows (with a few enemies from the Township). At the pits of the Chasm lies Manus, the father of the abyss. Everything about his fight makes you feel trapped. The arena is suspended above total darkness, and Manus is so intimidating that it never feels as if you're far from him enough for comfort. The only indication of how close you are to him is his multiple bulging red eyes. Nevertheless, he is my favorite (solo) boss in the game. As perilous as his fight is, he's very learnable. He is somehow a challenge of your strength and endurance without ever seeming unfair. After vanquishing the scourge of Oolacile, you'd expect the skies to clear up and have a celebration. That is, you'd expect this from any other game that wasn't Dark Souls. Princess Dusk appears in the arena, lying on the ground, weeping inconsolably. She is surrounded by nothing but darkness, and it seems like even though the menace is gone, it didn't matter at the end of the day. The harrowing doom that surrounds her kingdom cannot be stopped, and it will only worsen. It's a very devastating scene to end on. It almost makes me feel bad that I can teleport out of here back to the base game.
Dark Souls: Artorias of the Abyss is practically the best DLC content. I'm not speaking in terms of the series but in terms of DLC content in general. The content provided here is just as solid as anything from the already fantastic base game, and it feels totally separated from it all the same. The levels, bosses, and world-building are all incredible, making this worth every cent. It's almost as if having the DLC is essential for any Dark Souls experience.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com/