A noticeable step up from Sunken King in pretty much every way. The level design is really cool and for the most part, sick bosses.
The idea of starting at the top of a tower and making a downwards descent rather than vice versa allows for a lot of really cool encounters, and while there might be a few hiccups and one room everyone hates, it’s mostly pretty manageable, regardless that this game is physically and mentally unable to stop doing gank encounters. The barrel hollows are a little goofy and they don’t work as intended but I do like the idea at play. There’s also some really sick visuals here, the whole fire and ice pairing is something I’ve loved since I was a kid playing Spyro, and this includes some really harsh architecture and wonderful views of the surrounding land. The lore surrounding the area is all pretty cool, although Nadalia to me comes off as the least interesting of the four (or five) sisters of dark.
Fume Knight I was expecting to be as perfect as I remembered, and I was basically right, but I was not expecting the first DkS2 boss on this playthrough that actually provided a serious, rigorous challenge. Up to that point (I just had the three endgame bosses and Ivory King left to run through) the only boss that felt truly challenging was Darklurker, but it still only took me a handful of tries. Smelter Demon was up there but it was mostly the shitty SOTFS runup. Fume Knight absolutely broke me, and forced me to learn every single one of his moves by heart, no bad runup included. He is absolutely brutal and suffocating, and you must be truly better than him to triumph. With this, paired with a nice arena, amazing music, and great lore, Fume Knight manages to be one of the couple S-tier bosses in DkS2.
As for the optional boss, the same cannot be said in the slightest. The trend of “DkS2 DLC has an absolute garbage optional area and boss” gets even worse with the much-maligned Iron Passage and the concluding Cool Ranch Smelter Demon. Nothing about Iron Passage is fun to progress through, with seemingly endless footsoldiers, ranged attackers, casters who slow you down with whatever this game’s TWOP is, all in some ugly claustrophobic caves. Yeah, it’s sounding a lot like Cave of the Dead, but this is miles worse. No one ever takes their time with this area for a reason, and just tries to haphazardly roll through it all, which is more than possible but still requiring some skill, an amount more than rolling through Cave of the Dead. As for the Smelter Demon, it’s the Smelter Demon, but does magic damage instead of fire, as well as scaled damage and health. Literally no differences beyond this, this includes a garbage runup, so even though the original Smelt is a good boss, F for unoriginality.
And…yes. Sir Alonne teeeeeeeechnically is an optional boss as well, but no one’s letting themselves move on without beating him. Aside from a couple of iffy hitboxes, Sir Alonne is a super consistent boss, which is definitely a spell easier than Raime, but reflects himself as a dangerous swordsman who requires much attention and patience, as much as he himself is giving you. The honour and eloquence of Alonne is reflected in the arena, whereas the rest of the DLC features these old worn castle walls corrupted by fire and heat, Alonne’s arena is clean, reflective, and pristine, with a backdrop of a tart orange sunset. The fight also contains a pretty epic score by Kitamura that she would unfortunately later ripoff heavily in the theme for DkS3’s Slave Knight Gael. This whole experience is only weakened by an absolutely asinine runup. This game couldn’t go without giving me TWO horrible boss runups bloated with Alonne knights and fire hazards. I just don’t get it.
All of this comes together to provide what I can easily call the best DLC of the bunch, despite its numerous shortcomings.
The idea of starting at the top of a tower and making a downwards descent rather than vice versa allows for a lot of really cool encounters, and while there might be a few hiccups and one room everyone hates, it’s mostly pretty manageable, regardless that this game is physically and mentally unable to stop doing gank encounters. The barrel hollows are a little goofy and they don’t work as intended but I do like the idea at play. There’s also some really sick visuals here, the whole fire and ice pairing is something I’ve loved since I was a kid playing Spyro, and this includes some really harsh architecture and wonderful views of the surrounding land. The lore surrounding the area is all pretty cool, although Nadalia to me comes off as the least interesting of the four (or five) sisters of dark.
Fume Knight I was expecting to be as perfect as I remembered, and I was basically right, but I was not expecting the first DkS2 boss on this playthrough that actually provided a serious, rigorous challenge. Up to that point (I just had the three endgame bosses and Ivory King left to run through) the only boss that felt truly challenging was Darklurker, but it still only took me a handful of tries. Smelter Demon was up there but it was mostly the shitty SOTFS runup. Fume Knight absolutely broke me, and forced me to learn every single one of his moves by heart, no bad runup included. He is absolutely brutal and suffocating, and you must be truly better than him to triumph. With this, paired with a nice arena, amazing music, and great lore, Fume Knight manages to be one of the couple S-tier bosses in DkS2.
As for the optional boss, the same cannot be said in the slightest. The trend of “DkS2 DLC has an absolute garbage optional area and boss” gets even worse with the much-maligned Iron Passage and the concluding Cool Ranch Smelter Demon. Nothing about Iron Passage is fun to progress through, with seemingly endless footsoldiers, ranged attackers, casters who slow you down with whatever this game’s TWOP is, all in some ugly claustrophobic caves. Yeah, it’s sounding a lot like Cave of the Dead, but this is miles worse. No one ever takes their time with this area for a reason, and just tries to haphazardly roll through it all, which is more than possible but still requiring some skill, an amount more than rolling through Cave of the Dead. As for the Smelter Demon, it’s the Smelter Demon, but does magic damage instead of fire, as well as scaled damage and health. Literally no differences beyond this, this includes a garbage runup, so even though the original Smelt is a good boss, F for unoriginality.
And…yes. Sir Alonne teeeeeeeechnically is an optional boss as well, but no one’s letting themselves move on without beating him. Aside from a couple of iffy hitboxes, Sir Alonne is a super consistent boss, which is definitely a spell easier than Raime, but reflects himself as a dangerous swordsman who requires much attention and patience, as much as he himself is giving you. The honour and eloquence of Alonne is reflected in the arena, whereas the rest of the DLC features these old worn castle walls corrupted by fire and heat, Alonne’s arena is clean, reflective, and pristine, with a backdrop of a tart orange sunset. The fight also contains a pretty epic score by Kitamura that she would unfortunately later ripoff heavily in the theme for DkS3’s Slave Knight Gael. This whole experience is only weakened by an absolutely asinine runup. This game couldn’t go without giving me TWO horrible boss runups bloated with Alonne knights and fire hazards. I just don’t get it.
All of this comes together to provide what I can easily call the best DLC of the bunch, despite its numerous shortcomings.