In a game as sustained and brutal as Dark Souls 3, victories tend to be small and short-lived. But those moments, when they present themselves, are as sweet as they come.
It’s part of the reason why From Software games are so compelling. Rewards are sparing. Rewards come with a real sense of achievement.
I believe there are roughly five different emotions you feel upon defeating a boss in a From Software game, ranging from white-hot rage, to zen-like satisfaction, all the way to a low level thrum of disappointment. It all depends on the difficulty and how you finally dispatch of the boss itself. It differs from person to person, from boss to boss.
[Warning: the post contains spoilers for Dark Souls 3.]
For example:
Capra Demon: spitting white-hot rage.
Ornstein & Smough: a beautiful, zen-like state of ultimate understanding.
Gaping Demon: weird sense of ‘that was a wee bit too easy’ disappointment.
Last night I finally defeated the final boss of Dark Souls 3, Soul of Cinder. It was a boss fight that somehow succeeded in making me all of those things at once. I was fuelled with white-hot rage, I was overwhelmingly relieved, I was zen. Then it all settled itself into a strange disappointment. It might have been one of the most intense boss fights I’ve ever experienced in a video game ever.
In technical terms, it was some wild ass shit.
It took me a while to finish Dark Souls 3. Finding time to play with kids was difficult, then came the distraction of other games like Uncharted, Overwatch, etc. But in terms of raw time spent with the game, I cruised through Dark Souls 3 with relative ease. I must have clocked about 34 hours by the time the credits rolled. A relatively short period of time by Souls standards.
Only a handful of bosses caused me significant grief. Aldrich was a motherfucker, on account of the fact I was significantly under-levelled when I fought him. Pontiff Sulyvahn was a significant roadblock as well. The others felt okay, I’m a Souls veteran at this stage. I know most of the tricks.
But the Soul of Cinder was an interesting case, for a number of reasons. He’s the final boss. Some people managed to get past this encounter problem free. Some summoned the help of NPCs or co-op partners, some simply got past easily on their own terms.
Me? I died. A lot.
A lot-a-lot.
The Soul of Cinder is an amalgamation: that’s the high concept. He represents the collective consciousness of bosses from the Dark Souls series in its entirety. He’s a number of different characters combined into one bipedal being. He is a walking, breathing excuse to combine movesets from at least four or five different bosses in one bugger of a fight. He even has attacks derived from player movesets in the original Dark Souls.
Long story short, he’s a bastard. He’s insanely unpredictable. His vast repertoire of potential attacks makes him different to learn how to fight.
Worse still: he has two separate distinctive phases.
The first phase is manageable. At least it was for me. Depending on which moveset the boss is using he’s fairly easy, relatively speaking. I remember coming close the first time I fought him, and thinking, “ah, I’ve got this.”
Fourth or fifth time, I ‘got’ him. BAM. You’re dead. OK. Time to sit back and watch the credits roll, right?
Wrong.
The Soul Of Cinder revives himself. He once again has a full energy bar. I’m sitting here on two Estus Flasks, one hit away from death.
Fuck.
Suddenly I feel hella vulnerable. Second phase Soul of Cinder is a completely different boss fight, with a completely different moveset. His timing is way different. His strikes break my stamina bar in half and I can’t get the timing right to roll out of harm’s way.
Long story short, I get my ass handed to me in seconds. You died.
You died. You died. You died.
This happens over and over and over again.
I get frustrated, but I persist. I get to the point where I can manage Soul of Cinder’s first phase roughly 40% of the time. The second phase? No matter what the hell I do, I die quickly without making the barest of dents in this bastard’s health bar.
Soul of Cinder’s second phase is aggressive. He has the moveset of Dark Souls 1’s final boss, a boss which I had a severe amount of trouble with in the original game. Why? Because he is unpredictable, he doesn’t have a ‘safe’ range and his strikes are often delayed beyond what you normally expect in a Souls boss fight.
Fuck this. Fuck everything about this. I continue to die. Frequently. Brutally. At this point I haven’t even managed to get second phase Soul of Cinder to half health. He feels utterly insurmountable.
Then, Monday night.
Monday night. As is customary among my friends, a group of us come to my house to watch Game of Thrones together. Very nice. Friends, snacks, television. Good times. There are about seven adults in the house, four kids sleeping upstairs. The process of getting the snacks together and the goddamn kids to sleep is taking longer than usual.
Bugger it, I have a second. I’ll give this boss battle a go.
I have an audience. Two brothers-in-law, one of whom is a Souls fanatic. Another friend who is curious about the whole thing, openly wondering why I continue swearing at my television like a crazy person.
As usual with this boss battle, I die a lot. It’s been a while since I last played. I need to find my rhythm and I’m attempting to find it by verbally abusing my PlayStation 4.
Then, progress. I start making it to the second phase with encouraging regularity. But I’m still getting my ass handed to me, to the point where I start feeling a bit desperate. Most Dark Souls boss fights offer a sliver of hope. A pattern to learn, new techniques to practice. This time it all just felt impossible, to the point where I was starting to consider giving up.
But then, finally, a decent run. I get through Soul of Cinder’s first phase relatively unscathed. I have a ton of Estus flasks in the bank. I quickly beef up my health bar, add a lightning buff to my Dark Sword and think to myself, “okay Mark, time to die.”
I get a few hits in. I get hit back. I replenish my health and I get back into the fray. I’m rolling like a goddamn buffoon with little-to-no forethought. I am abandoning strategy. I am swinging my sword.
I am not looking at Soul of Cinder’s health bar. I have forgotten his health bar even exists.
For some reason – pure luck I guess – Soul of Cinder becomes staggered. This happens frequently in his first phase, but I never managed to pull it off in the second. I seize the moment, by smashing R1 like a man possessed. Maybe I am possessed.
I am probably possessed.
I zip out, replenish my health. I have one Estus flask left.
“You’ve got this man,” says my brother-in-law — the Souls fanantic.
“What the hell are you talking about,” I think to myself, utterly confused. As far as I’m concerned I’m two seconds from death like I always am with this motherfucker.
But then I look at Soul of Cinder’s health bar.
“Shit.”
That’s when I realise: he only has a third of his health left. I’d been having the run of a lifetime and I hadn’t even realised.
I might do this.
I might actually do this.
I get tight in my stomach. Breathe. Okay, here goes…
I get a few hits in. I’m freaking out.
I get hit. I’m on low health. Shit. I play this situation conservatively. I get out, create some distance. I use my last Estus Flask. I’ve got nothing left now. I roll into striking distance, I swing my sword a few times.
His health is low. Two, maybe three hits away.
At this point I’d like to explain a phenomenon that most Dark Souls players are familiar with. It’s a moment of temporary insanity, a pre-victory freak out if you will. You’ve struggled with a boss for so long, you’ve died so many times. Now you’re within touching distance and you just want this fucking pain to end…
You abandon strategy. You abandon technique. Abandon all hope and common sense ye who enter here. Sheer panic. You start attacking with no goddamn thought as to why you’re doing anything. You might even be screaming at the television in anticipation of your impending victory…
And that’s when it happens.
You get caught off guard. The boss hits you once, twice, maybe three times in sequence. You are dead. You are fucking dead.
You scream internally. You were so close. One hit away. You take a screencap, you tweet, you tell your buddies how close you were. It’s the “I once caught a fish this big” of video games.
It’s happened to me on so many occasions.
But not this time.
This time: same reaction, same freak out. Same old Serrels rushing in like a headless chicken.
This time: luck beyond belief. I am not hit. I am not dead. I hit Soul of Cinder once, twice, three times.
He dies.
Sweet lord. Sweet relief. Sweet justice. He dies.
I did it. Oh my god I fucking did it!
In a house full of my closest friends and family I stood up. Controller in hand I began screaming the word “yes” over and over again, my entire body shaking. Pure euphoria. Then, a turn for strange. I began screaming at the TV hysterically, “FUCK YOU FUCK YOU”, laughing like a cursed hyena.
Most of these people in my living room at this point had never played Dark Souls. Some didn’t play video games period. They had no context for the scene they were now witnessing. They couldn’t possibly understand this temporary insanity, this grown adult man — this responsible, married father of two — who was now howling at the moon like a perverse troglodyte.
It was a strange culmination. How could I explain that? This boss battle, this amalgamation of previous Dark Souls bosses, he had elicited a reaction akin to every single emotion I had ever felt whilst playing Dark Souls: rage, injustice, euphoria, hilarity, pain, disappointment. All of it.
The credits rolled. I sat down in my chair, mildly embarrassed with myself. We watched Game of Thrones, trying to forget the madness we were all privy to. We ate some snacks, we talked we laughed. It was a pretty good episode. How about that Jon Snow guy, huh? Do you remember when he did that thing?
Yeah, that was great.
Comments
25 responses to “The Boss Battle That Almost Drove Me Insane”
I am of the belief that there is no standard difficulty scaling for every one as I finished cinder first time solo (Fth & Str), but never finished nameless.
Yeah it’s funny how some people struggle on different bosses but find others relatively easy.
Congrats Mark, and honestly well done for capturing the full essence of the close-my-eyes-and-hope-this-works Dark Souls strategy. I could feel my heart pumping a bit faster reading that. It just makes being the chosen undead/bearer of the curse/ashen one feel more alive then they could ever imagine in the Souls series
Nice job on beating the last boss.
He wasn’t too terrible for me… but the boss that made me nearly rage quit on many occasions was the Nameless King, found in Archdragon Peak. He was a complete bastard.
a boss battle that almost drove you insane, huh?
https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000130007249-e5ea1j-t500x500.jpg
I killed him on my first go.
Ahahaha, nice. I know that one. When I finally beat Manus, at level 1, after days of trying, I yelled so loud that my housemate outside came in to see if I was ok.
At least he kinda got it though, being a game player himself.
I beat him on my first go for three characters. But when it came to the dancer, just something about that boss kept killing me. Even though I knew the move set and predicted all the attacks, I was always one mistake away from death.
I have never before felt a level of euphoria that i did when i beat Nameless King (or shouted quite so loud). I ploughed hours into defeating that guy.
Dragon Armour, man. Fucking Dragon Armour.
Now to do it all again in new game plus. LOL
Bosses so far have been reasonable, but those damn Jailers? THE WORST
I think I beat Soul of Cinder on my second attempt – his second phase nailed me, but then I got him when I new what to expect. NG+ was a different story – I knew what to expect but he kept killing me, to the point where I decided to summon in help.
Pontiff Sulyvahn was a real problem for me on my initial playthrough… but not the biggest. I just couldn’t get a handle on how to dodge him effectively, and eventually found the right shield (dragoncrest shield) to just continually rotate around him and poke him in the spicy b-hole. Second playthrough? Wasted him first try.
Nameless King was a complete and utter wall for me… but still not the worst. I came close to giving up on ever defeating him. Died countless times. First phase? Cake. Second phase? Jesus man… he wasted me time and time again. Couldn’t do it, until I gave up on it for another week or so while I finished the rest of the game. Then I came back and beat him on my third attempt or so.
Hardest enemy, though? The item drop rate. It was my Everest. I got the platinum trophy for this game. I almost gave up upon realising that some of the trophies required items and spells etc. that you could only get as covenant rewards for ranking up the different covenants. The problem was that I never got summoned as a Watchdog of Farron or a Blade of the Darkmoon. I did once for the former. ONCE. My two choices were restart the game and stay at a level I was more likely to be summoned at (but by no means was it going to be certain) until I’d gotten the items, or try to farm them from NPCs, many of which had something like a 1% drop rate. Farm I did. For days. And days. But I did it.
Do you know the definition of insanity? It’s doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get that rare drop.
Nice job Mark!
Honestly it took me so long to master and beat the Nameless King, on the plus side though my dodging and timing skills were at their peak so i killed the Lord of Cinder first or second try =)
He was a really cool boss and i hope he might be more challenging on New Game plus, which i’ll tackle after the DLC is eventually released.
The Nameless King is by far unquestionably the hardest boss in the whole series, not to say Soul of Cinder isn’t up there. My heart rate was so high after beating NK I had to pace around my house to avoid a heart attack. Getting these Proof of Concord covenant items and Vertebrae Shackles is starting to feel hopeless as midway through a losing boss streak.
Did anyone feel that Cinder was worse than Nameless King? I’d say they’re the 2 hardest in Ds3 but Nameless King is a nightmare
Nameless King is susceptible to bleed, I use Flamberge with Carthus Rouge and he goes down in no time.
Yeah, agreed. Had a bit of trouble with Cinder but, ugh I stopped playing the game all together for a little while when I got to NK. Had the first round with him mastered, but that second form would take me out in one or two hits. I could be dodging perfectly, whittling him away and then oops, one missed dodge, dead. Was so glad to have it over.
Haha, that thing about the loss of all reason when you’re near finishing a boss off is so true. I always try to channel Lobos at that point, breath, back up, and tell myself ‘don’t panic.’
Well done on the win though, I was lucky to only spend a couple hours on it. Hell of a fight.
I got sooooo stuck on the dancer of boreal valley 🙁 I swear i died 50+ times, easily haha. Had to get a friend to beat it for me. Was the only boss i got stuck on in the game, what made it worse was how many times i had her down to under 10% health or so and got one hit killed 🙁
Having never played the souls games properly until Bloodborne (yeah yeah I geddit, noob etc) and finishing the first couple of bosses with almost no trouble, I went back to demons souls to start from the beginning. Ive seriously given up on these games more times than I can count but am constantly reminded of them on my shame pile. The only times I’ve felt this kind of elation was the Devil May Cry series (particularly 3), cause back then, if a boss killed you, you had to redo the stage or sacrifice precious orbs. Souls games leave me feeling more inadequate because of how many people gloat about their victories while I sit here struggling to beat the fucking tower knight. #gitgud
I found the second phase relatively easy once I figured out how horrible an idea it is to stand and bang with him. Keep him at mid-range and bait that jumping attack, roll through it, hack away for a few seconds and then get some distance again. Repeat. Boring but effective.
Twin Princes gave me the most trouble out of any boss in this game. Great fight too, one of my favorite in the series.
Finally, someone who had/has a problem with the Twin Princes. I’ve had my brick walls along the way (probably more than most) but each one has felt to doable. Even with the Nameless King I never lost hope (he went down pretty easy in the end). But the Twin Princes are making me wonder whether I’ll ever finish Dark Souls 3. I’ve only gotten past the first stage twice only to be killed almost immediately when Lothric joins the fray.
I look at guides and it looks easy enough but I just can’t get behind him/them. I’m not even willing to waste an Ember until I have a strategy that seems remotely effectively. It’s just a reminder that I’m just not good at these games.
I really struggled with Nameless King. What an absolute bastard, I actually did Phase 1 first try and died in Phase 2… It took me about 10 more tries to even beat Phase 1 again.
Also regarding the incessant “I beat him first go!1” comments on every damn Soulsborne article, literally no one gives a f*ck if you beat a boss on your first go. You probably summoned, overlevelled and had the best possible build for that boss. Your statement means nothing.
The only thing more annoying and frustrating than defeating a difficult boss is watching someone else try to do over and over. I pity your audience. Play multiplayer games when people are over…
Yeah I’ve been playing Dark Souls 3 for
over a week straight now, every day. Every day I try to get past this
guy, I try about 10 times a day and I never get past him. Dark Souls
games really are too difficult to be enjoyed by any average gamer. And
I’m not even an average gamer, I consider myself to be advanced as hell
being 30 and having played every game imaginable. But to have to
literally retry the FIRST enemy in the game a million times and never
progressing once is just too fucking ridiculous for me to even merit as a
good game. This is insanity, not a video game. I said the same exact
thing with Dark Souls 1 and 2, couldn’t get past the first guys on them
either. I tried and tried and tried and I even watched youtube vidoes of
other people doing the same exact thing I’m doing but they win. I roll
left and right, attack, block, dodge, all to no avail. This game is an
utter failure and a waste of good graphics.
hey, you know what? Dark Souls games are good. The problem is…….. You suck, a lot
Hey, you know what… you suck. That’s it. noob