A Dark Souls 1 Story Retrospective

dark souls 1 is a fantastic game it's got a wonderful story that would set in motion numerous events that would occur throughout the trilogy but just within the bounds of its own game dark souls 1 has some incredibly deep and rich lore filled with some of the greatest backstories this series has to offer and today i want to discuss why, so without further ado let's get started so the opening cinematic of dark souls 1 starts at the gray world one that is filled with giant trees and dragons and while the world stayed like that for

a while one day fire was born as for how this fire came to be well it's never explained this is one of the many things we just have to accept the world of dark souls is fantasy and many things just can't be explained it's never mentioned how the first flame was created as it just happened but because the first flame was born disparity came with it life and death heat and cold and light and dark this description is literal since the first flame was created the people of the world felt its warmth and understood what

heat was when they walked away from the flame they realized its heat didn't reach them which created the feeling of cold the discovery of fire during the stone age is to this day the greatest discovery known to man and in dark souls this is no different given how unique something like this in the world of dark souls was those who discovered it were obviously attracted to its power four notable people would discover lord souls next to these flames and be given immense power these people were nito izalith gwyn and the pygmy from the intro we

can infer that there was a civilization of people that existed during the age of ancients izalith had daughters that were with her when she found her lord's soul and gwyn had his nights with him implying that people did exist during the time of the age of ancients but weren't of much value to the world given how powerful the dragons were eventually nito izalith and gwyn would band together and use their power to overthrow the dragons gwyn used this lightning izalith used her flames and nito used his death and disease they also received help from a

seath the scalists a dragon who betrayed his own kind now that the new lords were on top of the food chain the age of ancients was no more and the age of fire had begun this period would last thousands of years until we get to today currently the fire is fading and it needs to be rekindled in order to keep it lit but doing this is not as simple as it sounds you may have noticed i forgot to talk about the pygmy well the pygmy had a unique soul called the dark soul using his soul

he created something called humanity he would then share this humanity with his people these dark soul imbued people became known as humans the pygmy is essentially our ancestor gwyn feared this power though and created the dark sign which inadvertently caused the undead curse this isn't explained much in dark souls 1 but it is by far the most important plot in the whole series and while i just wanted to talk about this game for the whole video this needs to be explained or else the rest of the video going forward will make no sense the undead

curse the dark sign and the fading of the fire are all linked the dark soul gets more powerful the closer the fire is to fading thus meaning humans should get more powerful over time but gwyn screwed humanity twice by rekindling the flame thus removing our chance at power but also by branding humans with the dark side think of this as a literal wall of fire that prevents the dark soul within men from getting too powerful the dark side only activates when the flame is fading because that is when the dark soul within men starts to

grow stronger this dark sign also prevents humans from dying but it also causes them to go undead these fleshy creatures were once undead humans but they have crossed the barrier of no return even though humans are able to revive after death eventually this will cause them to lose their humanity lose their minds and lose their purpose causing them to go hollow these creatures are hollows beings who don't even remember who they are where they are or what they're even doing gwyn likes being on top and he fears the day that he will lose his power

so he'll do anything he can to prevent that from happening he did this by branding humanity with the dark side but by also rekindling the flame which is known as the first sin see the world is like a set of operations things are born but eventually they'll die but then more things will be born only to die soon after that's just the way the world works but gwyn broke the laws of the world by rekindling the first flame it was meant to be extinguished but due to gwyn wanting to hold on to what he held

dear he couldn't dare see it go he sacrificed himself by using himself as kindling for the first flame since he had one of the four original lord souls that came from the first flame it was deemed sufficient enough to be used as fuel unless the gauge of fire continued but as we know it is fading once more the undead curse is back humans are turning hollow and the world is in chaos doesn't this sound like a fantastic story that's because it is this intro and even the game display a sense of desperation within our characters

how far people willing to go to get what they want or keep what they have and while each of their desires is different it always comes out the same dark souls 1 is just the start but the actions of its characters will continue to echo throughout the entire trilogy and we're just getting started after the opening cinematic we get to see the state of the world as it is today or at least the state of this prison we're an undead that is sitting in their cell awaiting the end of the world but one day we're

given the key to our cell and are able to leave this person is oscar and he speaks of a prophecy there is an old saying in my family thou who art undead are chosen and thine exodus from the undead asylum maketh pilgrimage to the land of ancient lords when thou ringeth the bell of awakening the fate of the undead thou shalt know this prophecy also happens to be the main objective of the game but it's only the first part the rest we'll have to discover later the intro of dark souls 1 sets up a new

world by showcasing multiple important events in the world's history and also gives us enough information to understand the basic premise of the game while also purposely withholding some of that information to give us a reason to seek out said information one thing we need to consider though is our character's motivations why even bother making the trip to lordran the land of lords well what else is there to do it's the end of the world and you were just given the keys to your cell allowing you to explore the world to your heart's content even if

you're convinced that life is doomed in the world as we know it will disappear for good why not make the most out of it have some fun kill some hollows it's a whole lot better than rotting in a cell with our objective laid out to us thanks to oscar we can now set out to lordran and ring the bells technically the first area you're meant to go is the undead burg but one wrong step and you can make it to new londo out of all the souls games dark souls 1 will provide the best blind

playthrough as due to its connected world players will go in different directions which in turn will create different experiences new londo is actually a late game area since the enemies here are quite strong and the boss at the end of the level is quite tough but you may stumble upon this area by accident within five minutes of arriving this is due in part to dark souls ones a level design which may have the best level design in the whole franchise it's been coined as a metroidvania a genre that started with the game's metroid and castlevania

these games have non-linear progression as many areas can be accessed right away but others can't causing the player to go around the map looking for the key then running back to that same location such as this door that leads to havel which can only be found in the dark route basin past the boss the door is found pretty early on in your playthrough but the key is found much later plus you'll also have to remember where that key goes you'll be doing lots of running in this game the highlight of one of my play sessions

was going from blighttown to andre because i forgot to ascend my weapon before a boss fight meaning i had to take a three minute walk up to him then a three minute walk back down in future titles this would be remedied by fast travel but dark souls 1 doesn't have fast travel initially and even when you do gain the power of fast travel via the lord vessel it's not the typical fast travel we're familiar with as we're only allowed to travel to specific bonfires these decisions further immerse the player into the world as it's all

one connected level and since they're all connected that means you can see certain levels from different places such as blighttown which is visible from firelink shrine so not only was the level design of each area taken into account but also how the levels connected to one another and how this connection would affect other areas regardless of where you end up though whether that be new londo or undead burg the very first enemies you'll come to see are these hollow men like the ones back in the asylum all the undead we see here are humans who

have lost their humanity causing them to go hollow and now since we are human we should go hollow too however it's a bit more meta than that hollowing is a bit hard to define as everyone can go hollow for different reasons but the two main ideas seem to stem from constant death or a loss of purpose given that our character is set on ringing the bells he never goes hollow despite being undead as he still has a purpose should the player quit and uninstall the game they would lose their purpose so permanently quitting the game

is sort of like hollowing in a sense i don't think everything needs to be explained with lore so this is more than likely just a gameplay mechanic but that's how i've interpreted hollowing on our way to the bells of awakening will come across various different locations but sadly there isn't a whole lot of backstory involved in their creation locations like undead burg are just undead settlements and the valley of drake's is just a valley filled with drakes the only exceptions though are ash lake and blighttown blighttown is next to a location called the depths and

at the end of the depths is the gaping dragon and while an interesting boss what's more important is the arena we can see water coming from the depths and going into the sewer system which leads to blighttown according to various keys in the game we can piece together that those who previously lived in the undead burg but were banished from the settlement were sent to blighttown as punishment this is reinforced by the giant door that separates the sewer system from the outside world but this water from the sewer is poisonous well in blighttown there's a

spell called poison mist and according to its description it seems that eingyi this egg-bearing individual may have caused this as he was the creator of the poison miss spell it's not fully confirmed that he did this but it's clear that blighttown isn't in the greatest state and it's due to the circumstances surrounding blighttown that the townsfolk seem to have built above the water in hopes of getting away from it this is a common theme in these games of things being built on top of one another as we see blighttown above the swamp depths above blighttown

and the undead burg above all that the idea of pushing things down and leaving them to fester is also a common theme within this game but not everything is in such a sad state as at the lowest point of lordran we see ash lake a seemingly infinite land filled with archeries that are surrounded by an equally infinite body this seems to be where the dragons used to live or at least one part of it as it's eerily similar to the environment in the intro which we do know was the land of the everlasting dragons we

can even find one of the few remaining dragons down here in ash lake he's a part of the dragon covenant in-game and from various descriptions it seems like many people worship the dragons and tried to ascend to their level it's unclear though if that worked once the player feels confident in their fighting abilities they can approach the bosses defending the bells of awakening these being the bell gargoyles and chaos witch quelaag after bringing both bells we'll see that sen's fortress a place that was originally blocked with a large gate is now open but if we

travel back to firelink shrine we'll find a primordial serpent named frampt he claims to be a close friend of gwyns and also claims to know our fate very well then i am pleased to share chosen undead your fate is to succeed the great lord gwyn so that you may link the fire cast away the dark and undo the curse of the undead to this end you must visit anor londo and acquire the lord vessel just like before this second part of the prophecy also happens to be our newest objective but frampt is quite a complex

character if certain conditions are met within the game we can also be granted an audience with kaathe he however tells us a different story your ancestor claimed the dark soul and waited for fire to subside and soon the flames did fade and only dark remained thus began the age of men the age of dark so it wasn't just the fact that the fire was fading that caused gwen to rekindle it the flame actually went out furthermore despite being the same species both frampt and kaathe have different views on the world frampt wants to keep the

age of fire going but kaathe wants to usher in an age of darkness the question is who do we trust well that's up to you as these are the two endings of the game extinguish the flame or rekindle it the choice is yours what is important to note though is their motivations why are they doing this why are they against each other well we still don't know and it's been a widely debated topic that hasn't been given a proper answer yet regardless i don't think you should trust any of them frampt claims that the undead

curse will be cured if we link the flame but this isn't correct as we'll see in dark souls 2 and 3 the curse is still present frampt and kaathe are like politicians, they say what needs to be said but never elaborate by technicality the undead curse will be cured when we link the flame as we know the darksign only appears when fire fades and if it's not fading then the curse of the dark sign is gone which means the curse goes with it but it will eventually come back things are meant to run their course

so over time the fire will fade again and the curse will come back just not in our character's lifetime frampt whether intentional or not is leading the player to believe that the curse will disappear permanently when indeed it only just disappears for a few thousand years but kaathe is also lying as he isn't fully explaining what this age of darkness entails and as we'll see kaathe isn't exactly the nicest person in the soul's universe i've always seen these two as immortal beings ones that are ageless and due to this when the time comes they like

to move the pieces a bit and see what happens kaathe and frampt are basically playing a long game of chess but without the stakes regardless of who wins they both continue to live one just managed to convince the chosen undead more so why not cause a bit of chaos a lie or two here wouldn't hurt anybody as it's just extra pieces on the board to them to this day we still don't know what they really want from us and whether their goals they conveyed to us were actually genuine my interpretation of these could be wildly

incorrect but that's the beauty of these games they allow you to shape your own story and create your own adventure and in my story i don't trust these two regardless of who you believe the one thing they agree on is that we need the lord vessel thus we need to get to anor londo to get there we'll need to pass through sen's fortress a place filled with deadly traps and is easily the most infuriating area in the whole game the fortress is also used as a sort of trial as this leads us to anor londo

but many people have tried and failed to get there this is of course due to the numerous traps throughout the fortress and the iron golem at the top although he was surprisingly the easiest part of the fortress once the golem is defeated we are then grabbed by these demons and taken to anor londo it's hard to forget your first time in anor londo nothing up until this point has been more extravagant and beautiful looking than this place and that's what makes it so memorable in a world devoid of beauty and color there's this incredible place

that just exists but it's on the other side of the wall but something is off it feels empty like we showed up late to a party and in a more metaphorical and literal sense we have this place is gorgeous but if you'll excuse the pun it's also quite hollow lots of your time in anor londo is spent walking but if you manage to make it past these giants and exploit the ai of these silver knights then you'll make it to the climactic fight of ornstein and smough, O&S is undoubtedly my favorite fight in dark souls

1 the balance of these two is unmatched as ornstein is a quick nimble fighter that can go halfway across the arena just to hit you but his damage is nowhere near as staggering as the force that is smough whereas ornstein instills fear from his speed smoughs fear comes from his power ornstein at the beginning of the fight is more or less a pushover he does deal decent damage but it's not enough to warrant a healing item but no amount of damage resistance especially this early on could protect you from smough's hammer and one hit from

this hammer can make orenstein seem a lot more threatening their power grows from the other's presence as the more ornstein chips at your health the closer you are to being within one shot range of smough and if smough hits you once well there's nothing that can compare to that level of stress they feed off each other in such a balanced way in fact they actually feed on each other as whoever falls first becomes the power source for the other their health also goes back to full so it's never about dwindling them down over time it's

committing to one and sticking with it the problem is knowing when to strike and how given how well they complement each other it might seem like there's never an opening and that's what makes them such a difficult fight all that's required though from the player is patience it's arguably one of the best fights in the game and even the series as a whole and i can finally see why while O&S may seem like the climactic finish to the level hold your load as behind them is the real climax the princess of sunlight Gwynevere feel free

to interpret climax however you want she is the one who gives us the lord vessel we need to progress through the game but as i said earlier it feels like we arrived late to a party well i wasn't lying once the post nut clarity settles in if we attack gwynevere the world of anor londo shows its true colors and reveals that it's just as depressing as everything else in lordran and the one responsible for this illusion is dark sun gwyndolin, gwyndolin is an interesting case to me as he was the last born child of gwyn

who was a male but was raised as a female this was due to his strong affinity with moon magic i'm not sure what the connection is but maybe it's some sort of cultural thing where the moon is seen as a sort of feminine symbol which would actually explain a lot regarding a future game and two of its characters gwyndolin also created the illusion of anor londo to seemingly entice the chosen undead to continue their duty remember gwyndolin only appears when we kill gwynevere illusion meaning that this is actually gwyndolin speaking to us through his sister

he also shares the same viewpoints as frampt which is interesting as he's basically telling us to kill his father and continue the age of fire gwyndolin seems to want to hold on to the power his family has and keep things running smoothly which is why he wants the age of fire to continue so that his family and their powers can stay and the reason why he created the illusion of anor londo was also to desperately hold on to the past ha i guess it runs in the family then as for how gwynevere fits into this

while she was gwyn's second born child who like many other deities left in orlando she would then meet with a flame god flan and later become his wife besides these two gwyn had two other children but we'll have to wait for dark souls 3 to discuss more about them so in orlando the city of gods this place that was supposed to be seen as a beacon of hope to all within lordran is just an illusion but anor londo isn't the only illusion of lordran but making our way to the painting inside the city upon touching

it were thrown into the painted world of ariamis ariamis as a concept is fascinating as it's this world within a world and these people inside the painting could possibly never know of the world outside of it from exploring this hidden world we learn that ariamis was made for things the gods feared ariamis is home to the followers of velka and velka is known as the goddess of sin furthermore this is the only location in the game where you can find the dark ember which according to its item description is used to make occult weaponry weapons

that were favorable amongst those who plan to kill the gods and their kin velka was more than likely someone who wanted to hunt the gods but was killed or thrown into the painting it's clear that this place has a malicious history behind it but it's not all bad as the person who watches over ariamis is crossbreed priscilla priscilla is a half-human half-dragon crossbreed due to this unique birth she also gained some unique abilities mainly the ability of life hunt which he uses on her scythe these powers of hers could threaten the gods rule so they

also threw her into the painted world but what's rather interesting is priscilla herself she's the only boss in the game that doesn't want to fight us she even tells us how to leave ariamus meaning not only does she have no intent of enacting revenge but she knows how to leave yet refuses priscilla may have felt how these new arrivals feel but instead of using vengeance she uses acceptance and instead welcomes these people into her painted world it's actually quite wholesome and is the reason why i couldn't kill her every boss in this game is hell-bent

on killing me so when i finally discovered one that didn't want to and in fact help me i couldn't refuse so i left with the hope that priscilla would be able to make this place a proper home for her people this whole area is swarming with hollows and other creatures that want nothing more than to kill us but they were either tricked into here or thrown in because the gods willed it and yeah some of them probably do belong in here but if priscilla is set on making this place a home for those who have

found themselves here then who am i to intervene after acquiring the lord vessel when we meet with koth or frampt they'll tell us that to gain access to gwyn we must gather the remaining lord souls and use them to satiate the lord vessel these lord souls belong to four individuals seath the scaleless the witch of izalith nito and the four kings three of whom you will have already recognized from here we can tackle the game in any order we want so let's start with the four kings the four kings are well four kings who ruled

over new londo they were given fragments of gwyn's soul which is why we need to kill them you may recognize their boss location as this is the same dark abyss that we met kaathe well long ago the four kings were tricked by kaathe and were consumed by the abyss this caused the kings to go mad and this also caused the citizens to either become these blobs of mass or the dark wraith soldiers this area really utilizes the environment to tell its tale as this place is overrun by the ghosts of the villagers and when we

actually unlock the door to lower new londo we see piles of corpses scattered throughout the land kaathe single-handedly destroyed an entire city simply by tricking its inhabitants and unleashing the abyss upon them while the mass extinction of a city sounds bad there is still more destruction to be seen one thing you may have noticed is a severe lack of human bosses quelaag would probably count as the first one you'd meet although she's sort of half human but there's a reason for this as this has to do with the witch of izalith while gwyn was frantically

running around trying to figure out what to do with the flame the witch of izalith had a plan she was going to create a new flame that would replace the first flame but she attempted to create a replica in the presence of the very thing that was created which brought with it massive consequences the witch of izalith wanted to create a new first flame but there was already a first flame present in the world there can't be two first flames due to this the flame that she created couldn't be contained for long causing it to

erupt and this not only consumed her and her children but also created new life as it gave birth to demons the asylum taurus and capra demon roughly the first three bosses in the game were created from this event in fact anything that has the word demon in it is most likely derived from this flame of chaos but not only was new life created old life was altered all of izalith's family who were caught in the explosion were all transformed into demons themselves chaos which quelaag the fair lady and ceaseless discharge are three of izalith's children

just as gwyn was desperate to continue the age of fire in an attempt to keep what he had so too did izalith but the consequences are a reflection of her actions in an attempt to give life to something bright and warm she ended up giving life to something cold and dark she also wanted to extend the age of fire in order to continue her prosperous life with her children but by doing so she ended up making their lives a living hell not a single person in this family tree is living a robust life anymore quelaag

and her sister the fair lady are half demon and are more than likely suffering from their condition as told to us by the fair lady ceaseless discharge was covered in lava sores from birth so his life was a living hell from the start the flame of chaos just made it worse ceaseless discharge just like priscilla doesn't actually want to fight us it's only until we steal this clothing set that he attacks us this clothing set rests upon a grave that belonged to his sister quelana who he believes died in the explosion when in fact she

was the only one who escaped quelana will appear in blighttown if the player is sufficient enough in pyromancy quelana explains that she was the only one who made it out of the reaches of the flame of chaos in fact she was actually able to harness the power of the flame of chaos and create magic which we know as pyromancy quelana wants us to fulfill her duty for her as she does not have the strength to go on she instructs us that we need to put down her siblings and her mother so that they may rest

in peace this whole family dynamic is horrific as ceaseless believes that all his sisters are dead even though qulana is alive and quelana is only a few meters from her sister and yet we can tell her about this clearly this is turning into a very depressing story but it only gets worse as we get closer to the final boss of the area we'll meet with a pyromancer who is assumed to be another daughter of izalith although it's unclear why she is so far down in these ruins yet is completely unharmed it's possible that she like

quelana escaped the flame of chaos but this daughter came back to finish off the boss right behind her or has possibly gone insane and is now defending said boss and by going down this slide we will meet this monstrosity who is the bed of chaos this is the witch of izalith one of the four most powerful people in the world has been demoted to this deformed tree-like creature there are also these orbs next to her that we need to destroy in order to damage her and it's assumed by many that these are her other two

daughters that were closest to her when the flame erupted so we have two daughters stuck to their mother two daughters who were half afflicted by the flame a son who is arguably the most affected and two daughters who manage to survive one who doesn't have the strength to carry on anymore and another who sits outside her mother's arena this is by far the most depressing story i've ever had the misfortune of uncovering the further we push into lost izalith the more of the family we get to meet allowing us to see the consequences of her

actions we can see the pain that all of them are in as some of them are just wishing for their siblings back and others just want to stay alive it's an awful story that all leads to the final fight with izalith herself and it is by far the most anti-climactic ending i've ever experienced it is agreed upon by many that the bet of chaos is the worst fight in dark souls 1. the boss is insanely difficult but it's not the difficulty itself that's the issue it's why the boss is difficult i would argue that just

within the main game the two hardest bosses are the four kings and ornstein and smough are difficult bosses because there's two of them you have to have both on screen at all times or you'll lose this fight this is balanced by having ornstein be fast but not as lethal and smough being slow and hard-hitting it's a wonderful dichotomy that makes for a satisfying fight and the four kings is a dps check as every 30 to 45 seconds a second king will spawn and this will keep going until 4 on your screen at once to succeed

you need to kill the current king before this happens both boss fights are hard but have weaknesses you can exploit the bet of chaos has none to defeat the boss you need to destroy both orbs on her sides then go down the middle inside of her so you can find the source of her power she's actually extremely weak as both the orbs and her die in one hit it's getting there that's the issue her hand attack is oddly timed and due to her design it's unclear where her hitbox ends after defeating one of the orbs

the floor will start to crumble so not only do you need to avoid her attacks but you'll also need to avoid the floor there's also a strict path you're meant to follow for this fight which will lead you right next to a broken piece and the flooring so you'll more than likely get hit and fall in and die the walk back to this boss is also just as atrocious as you'll more than likely spend more time walking to the boss than actually fighting her thankfully there is no reset involved in this boss as every single

run you've done is carried over to the next as it essentially has unlimited checkpoints it's like from software knew it was bad but still kept it in even if i actually enjoyed the fight the payoff narratively isn't worth the time we ventured further and further into the depths of lost izalith coming across all of her children who were these hideous beasts that did incredible damage and she's just a puzzle the witch of izalith has one of the best backstories in the game as the tale of her children is heartbreaking and being able to see their

conditions face to face does take a lot out of you but it's completely soured by a boss fight that is mechanically and narratively a letdown our third lord soul belongs to grave lord nito and he's interesting to say the least nito might have the most detailed boss design but the most basic story out of all the four lords if you were to just assume that nito simply became the grim reaper and just administered death you wouldn't be far off which is a shame for someone of his importance gravelord nito lives in the tomb of giants

which is accessed via the catacombs both these areas share a similar theme of death as this is where the dead are buried so we know that he administers death but what else does he do well not much else he does have a covenant that you can join but their goal is just to spread more death across the world it seems like he doesn't care about what's going on in the world as the only reason he attacks you is because we're obviously here with malicious intent leader doesn't have any lore regarding his life during the age

of fire and it's just about him administering death from this we can infer that nito either doesn't care about the age of fire or maybe even just wants the age of darkness to occur the only other bit of lore surrounding him is a boss named pinwheel who is a necromancer presumably made up of three people as referenced by the number of masks on the body who stole an item from him known as the rite of kindling there are quite a few theories regarding pinwheel like the fact that pinwheel was originally a father but his wife

and child died so he attempted to resurrect them but it failed and some have stated further that he's still trying to figure out how to revive them as we can see skeletons throughout the room which could be seen as his test subjects but other than that we've pretty much discussed all of nito there isn't anything else to speak about which is a real shame his backstory has a massive amount of potential but it just felt unfinished there are no major themes tied to nito he just kinda exists our final lord soul belongs to seath the

scaleless seath as we remember allied himself with our four lords and attacked the dragons the reason he did this was because seath unlike the other dragons was not immortal all the other dragons had impenetrable scales that could not be broken with any type of weapon sheath was not born with these scales so in a sense he was not immortal it was only until gwyn was given their weakness from seath which we know is lightning that gwyn was able to pierce the dragon's scales and actually kill them seath was envious of his brethren as they had

what he didn't so as thanks for working with gwyn he was named the duke and given the duke's archives as well as some of gwyn's lord soul for power during the war seath found the primordial crystal an item that gave him temporary immortality but during this time in the duke's archives he eventually went mad with his experiments in his research he is considered the grandfather of sorcery as well as the creator of these creatures and the moonlight butterfly our first interaction with seath is that he ends up killing us and throwing us in a prison

cell we can see that theme of desperation as seth is trying everything he can to get what he wants but in the process it made him mad he's not as mindful of his actions as he used to be in a sort of a shadow of his former self one thing i find interesting in this prison is the abundance of miracle-related items and the clothing that are scattered throughout the prison it's possible that clerics were deemed suitable subjects for seath experiments maybe this is due to their magical power or because they were so easy to defeat

to kill seath though we need to head to the crystal caves which i was originally going to say was probably the worst level in this game due to half the map being invisible but the walk to the boss is surprisingly straightforward venturing off that path though is where the problem lies to defeat seath we need to break his primordial crystal so that we can sever his immortality giving us a chance to kill him the story of these lords caused a bit of an imbalance throughout my playthrough you can go through lost izalith and the demon

ruins which is filled with rich lore tons of backstory and compelling bosses that fit with the lore surrounding the witch of izalith but then you go to the four kings and just find out that they were lords of new londo who got tricked by kaathe and consumed by the abyss it feels jarring going from one to the other as one feels thorough while the other feels incomplete like you missed something or there was more that should have been said i don't think every boss needs to have a multi-page wikipedia article in order for it to

be considered a good story i think that the boss's story said what needed to be said in regards to the overarching plot but i can't lie to you and tell you that i didn't leave these locations wanting more i wanted to know more about the four kings and how they rose to power and i wanted to know more about nito and sith in general but i never got that and i guess in a way this could be viewed as a positive as i didn't walk out of these places not wanting to learn them at all

but rather wanted to learn more the game invested me so much into its story thanks to its characters and environmental storytelling that i wanted the game to provide me with more information on it i wanted to be encapsulated by this story more than i already was as with many souls games not all answers are explicitly told to us but there were still a lot of burning questions i had that never got mentioned with the lord's souls on the vessel we are now able to fight gwyn but we still have one final location we need to

visit which is the land of oolacile accessed by the artorius of the abyss dlc the one and only dlc that dark souls 1 would have we start this dlc by defeating this gold golem that has a woman named dusk captured inside dusk was the princess of a place called oolacile according to her it's a place from an age that existed long ago hilariously enough she doesn't actually say anything after this you would think that the dlc would sort of spin a story that her home is in danger and we need to save her but she

doesn't actually tell us that she just sells us sorceries the dlc doesn't officially start though until we return back to her location with an item called the broken pendant which causes us to get sucked in into this portal and taken to oolacile as dusk said oolacile was a place from long ago and while you may be confused on how this fits within the geography of lordran this place is a lot closer than you think in fact we already ran through it to get to the dlc the dark rouge garden is oolacile this is evident by

the tree enemies who have a similar design to these tree-like enemies and the same plants that are only found in the dark root garden are also found here as well oolusio was a city hundreds of years before the dark rouge garden came to be so something happened that made this place turn into the garden that we know of well to understand the story of oolacile we need to talk to elizabeth but princess dusk is here no longer snatched away by that horrifying primeval human and so i must ask could thou once more play the savior

an abyss was begat of the ancient beast and threatens to swallow the whole of oolacile knight artorias came to stop this but such a hero has neary a murmur of dark without doubt he will be swallowed by the abyss overcome by its utter blackness indeed the abyss may be unstoppable still i have faith that princess dusk may be rescued yet this prime evil human is manus of the abyss the final boss of the dlc and the thing that sucked us into oolacile in the first place so our job is to hunt manus down my main

gripe with the dlc is justification as technically with the lord vessel we can just leave so why do we need to worry about this it's not an immersion breaking problem but it is a shame while traveling through the land of oolacile you will come across this coliseum-like structure which is where we get to meet our next boss artorias of the abyss artorias was one of the four knights of gwyn the other three are hawkeye gough who is sitting at the top of the tower right next to the coliseum ciaran who appears in the coliseum after

we defeat artorias and the final light is ornstein each of them were skilled in their own ways as hawkeye used his powerful grepo to shoot down dragons in fact he can actually help us shoot down calamite who was the last of the ancient dragons ornstein also used his spear that was able to cut through the scales of dragons with ease and we can also see the spoils of his war due to the amount of dragon heads that exist in anor londo artorius is also able to wield his greatsword with incredible finesse and ciaran used her

two daggers to cut down anyone who opposed gwyn's rule but all of them minus ornstein are way past their prime which is a growing theme amongst the entire series gough was imprisoned in this tower with nothing left to do but to make carvings he also couldn't use his great bow anymore as all the dragons have been wiped out so he has no purpose ciaran may have had a deep love for artorias says when we visit her she is next to the grave she made for him and asks if we can give her his soul if

we do she gives us her weapons and continues to sit by the grave implying that she no longer wants to be a knight anymore and artorias came to oolacile in an attempt to stop the abyss from spreading but ended up losing and being corrupted himself his left arm is also dangling which might suggest that it's broken this is because he used his shield to protect his wolf companion sif the same sif from the main game although he is much smaller in this dlc sif also has a different intro if you do the dlc first because

oolacile is in the past so he'll remember you in the present and it makes killing him that much harder in regards to sif it's possible that he doesn't want us getting the covenant of the abyss ring as that allows us to travel through the abyss to kill the four kings and given his owner's condition sif probably doesn't want us to end up like artorias the artorias boss fight was actually really entertaining he was the first boss that felt like the antithesis of this game's combat most of the game's pace has been very slow and methodical

but he has these fast attacks and very few openers i do wish though that there was at least an ounce of build up to this fight as you can literally start the dlc and be at the boss room in about 10 minutes i think having the player traverse some of the areas that are covered in these abyss creatures that grow in number as we get closer to artorias would have been great as it's slowly leading us towards this person responsible for all this death well narratively it felt a bit too fast for me the fight

mechanically was great after artorias we can explore the rest of oolacile and we can see how much this land has been affected by the abyss as all the inhabitants have been infected by this dark energy turning them into these disgusting creatures eventually we'll reach the bottom and this feeling of fear starts to set in as the world becomes darker and darker the further we go down here in the chasm of the abyss is where the darkness reaches its peak and it's where these dark sprites of humanity live these are very similar in design to the

actual humanity we consume in game this seems to be humanity in a more physical form one that is more exposed and not constricted by the dark side at the foot of the chasm is our final boss manus the father of the abyss manus has an interesting story apparently the people of oolacile were tricked by a serpent who was probably coughed into digging manus grave up in doing so it caused manus to go wild and unleash his wrath upon them according to his soul manus was once a human but became father of the abyss when his

humanity went wild and now he eternally seeks his broken pendant the same pendant we had to find to start the dlc it's unclear why he liked this pendant so much but it was possibly nostalgic to him or was given to him by someone he loved and because this pendant was so important to him he did everything he could to get it back which inevitably drove him to insanity it seems that he got so desperate to find the pendant that he pulled in random people into this world as the npc marvelous chester is clearly not from

this world and he even says so himself he also kind of looks like the hunters from bloodborne which is a nice reference to the game the main question many within the community have though is who was manus before he became his current deformed state well we really don't know many have said it's the furtive pygmy and i like that idea but i think it's less interesting than that many of the spells in this dlc say that they were created by an oolacilian sorcerer on the brink of madness i can't help but think that this is

perfect for manus's description one thing that is interesting is that in the middle of the arena is a grave with a humanity-shaped hole so maybe manus was one of these humanity sprites when he died or that this is what he turned into when he died regardless it's a very interesting detail i also couldn't get any footage of this as she disappears when you leave the boss room but dusk apparently appears out of manus when we kill him meaning that he kidnapped her this may confuse some people as dusk has been sort of all over the

place in this game and due to her going from the past to the present it sort of screws with the time a bit it seems like she was sent into our time somehow and was captured by this golem she then disappears and goes back into her time which then leads to the abyss incident with the people of oolacile artorias is then called to defeat the abyss but fails and then we get summoned into this world via manus hand then save dusk and go back to the present it's still a little confusing and the world of

dark souls is also very confusing when it comes to time as always during this fading of the fire time is very convoluted because we can summon people as phantoms and the time sort of stops it's very confusing but that's how i think it went down but with manus dead we have officially finished the dlc however this won't be the last time we'll hear of manus but that's for dark souls 2 artorias of the abyss was a great dlc while it does lack in motivation in regards to the player the actual story of the dlc was

great it provides us with a nice timeline of events as well as more insight into the abyss and its effects on the world and while not known at the time it would eventually set up the plot to dark souls 2. it is without a doubt a worthy extension to the game's story but now we can finally go to the kiln of the first flame and determine the fate of lordran the kiln is coated in action we can see the spirits of those who followed gwyn into the kiln walk around aimlessly as we approach the first

flame we have one person in our way and that is the lord of sunlight himself earlier i said gwyn sacrificed himself to rekindle the flame and he did but because of his lord soul's power he was able to keep his body but his mind was gone gwyn has gone hollow and while i'm more than capable of killing him myself i couldn't dare start the fight without the guy who's been by my side since the very beginning solaire of astora is easily the most well-known npc in the entire souls franchise and his story is a perfect

representation of the mood this game is trying to convey throughout the whole game we've been meeting with npcs of all kinds some with goals and others without but none of them have managed to touch my heart in a way that solaire and siegmeyer did both of them had a goal in mind one wants to find his sunlight and the other wants to explore the world but both are stuck sigmar always seems to be getting himself caught in some situation whether that be a locked gate he can enter or a poison swap he can cross and

solaire can find his sunlight they both willingly became undead in order to achieve their goals and it tore me apart to hear that sigmar couldn't see it through sigmar prides himself on being a knight of catarina and that he can handle all of his troubles on his own but with my help i showed him that he wasn't a worthy knight after all and that he always needed someone to rescue him more often than not in these games your assistance will lead to their death so it's either converse with them and enjoy their company knowing that

they will die because of you or distance yourself from them knowing that while it hurts it's better that they get to live another day npcs of these games will usually end up achieving a terrible fate but this sadness makes the few times a happy outcome occurs all the better solaire wasn't able to find sunlight of his own he became depressed and wondered if this journey was really worth taking conveying the tone of the entire game is our journey and our struggle really worth it in the end which is why i owed it to him to

make it right it may not be the actual sun but the first flame could be considered the sun so for one final time i summoned solaire and we took down lord gwyn gwyn's theme has such a fitting tune all these bosses have these intense sounds with loud music but gwyn's is such a simple piano it's not intense it's almost sad in a way that the most powerful man in the world has been reduced to nothing and what was supposed to be a glorious fight between two warriors really isn't it makes it all the more worse

when you realize that gwyn can be parried and once you nail this timing down this fight is a cake walk further showing how far from grace he has truly fallen with gwyn defeated we can now choose our ending but we aren't the only one who's able to choose since we managed to bring solaire all the way to the end of the game he was able to also fight gwyn in his own world thanks to the convoluted timelines of dark souls and it is canonized that he succeeded and linked the flame in his own world he

became the sunlight he was searching for and that might be one of the greatest endings in the entire franchise but while solaire linked the flame that doesn't mean we have to if we choose the age of fire the world continues we rekindle the flame and use ourselves as kindling to continue this age of fire if we instead choose to leave we let the flame extinguish itself we join the primordial serpents including kaathe and probably frampt and usher in an age of dark one where humanity is at the top and we ourselves are the ruler at

least that's what we think will happen like many plots in the souls series this is once again left up to interpretation we only get to see the very beginning of our choice so anything after is just pure speculation who knows what will happen after and who knows if our choice was really the correct one that's always been up to the player to decide but i've always felt that these endings are about comfort do we stay comfortable knowing that in the age of fire we aren't on top and might be mistreated due to our lack of

strength or do we take the risk and see what the age of dark is about one thing to note though is the circumstances regarding these endings fram says that the undead curse will be cured if we go with the age of fire and not even kaathe says anything about this when we talk with him about it so does that mean that we'll stay undead or at least still have the risk of going hollow in the age of dark furthermore the age of fire was a time ruled by the gods and they did what they could

to keep it that way but we killed them everyone in anor londo that is a god is either dead or gone gwyndolin is the only one that canonically lives thanks to dark souls 3. so even though an age of fire can be seen as the age of gods that might not be true anymore as we took care of most of them so there is positives and negatives both ways and that's really been the point there's never going to be a clear answer it's just whatever you think is right as for me i think an age

of dark is the proper way to go as we said in the intro the world of dark souls is like a set of operations things come and things go and the age of dark should have followed after the age of fire but due to gwen breaking the rules of the world that didn't happen so i think in an attempt to set things back on track before further destruction an age of dark is the way to go regardless of what happens in this age of dark at the very least things will transition back to the way

it was supposed to be however that might not be the actual ending given the future titles some have debated on proper endings and given the status of dark souls 3 linking the flame i think is the real ending and is definitely the most agreed upon as just about every person in this game will speak about linking the flame we only hear about the age of dark from kaathe who we have to jump through several hoops to just even meet i can almost guarantee someone has gone throughout the entire game and didn't even know that an

age of dark was the real option because of how hidden it is and while it's not my preferred ending continuing the age of fire would set in motion numerous events for us to discover dark souls 1 was a fantastic experience from start to finish and while the road was a little bumpy sometimes along the way its story wrapped up wonderfully it's a game that i recommend you play at least once in your lifetime as you will never get to experience something like this ever again but we're just getting started but now we've made it to

the outro thank you all for watching today and i hope you all enjoyed if you did please be sure to like and subscribe if you're new we still have quite a few souls games to get through so get ready as we're going to be going through dark souls 2 next and i must say i'm honestly quite excited and i hope you all are too to wrap things up as always thank you to my returning viewers for coming back to another video and take care everyone goodbye